The moduli space M0,n of n pointed stable curves of genus 0 admits an action of the symmetric group Sn by permuting the marked points. We provide a closed formula for the character of the Sn-action on the cohomology of M0,n. This is achieved by studying wall crossings of the moduli spaces of quasimaps which provide us with a new inductive construction of M0,n, equivariant with respect to the symmetric group action. Moreover we prove that H 2k (M0,n) for k ≤ 3 and H 2k (M0,n) ⊕ H 2k−2 (M0,n) for any k are permutation representations. Our method works for related moduli spaces as well and we provide a closed formula for the character of the Sn-representation on the cohomology of the Fulton-MacPherson compactification P 1 [n] of the configuration space of n points on P 1 and more generally on the cohomology of the moduli space M0,n(P m−1 , 1) of stable maps.
Contents1. Introduction 2 2. Wall crossings of the moduli spaces of quasimaps 7 3. Preliminaries on representations of the symmetric groups 13 4. Representations on the cohomology of Q δ 15 5. S n -representations on the cohomology of M 0,n+1 20 6. Representations on the cohomology of M 0,n 30a permutation representation 36 8. K-theoretic cuspidal block 52 Appendix A. Character of A k (M 0,n ) 56 Appendix B. Character of A k (P 1 [n]) 57 References 59