A formula for the Euler characteristic of $\overline{{\cal M}}_{2,n}$

2001

In this paper we compute the generating function for the Euler characteristic of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of smooth n-pointed genus 2 curves. The proof relies on quite elementary methods, such as the enumeration of the graphs involved in a suitable stratification of \(\overline{{\cal M}}_{2,n}\).