Overview: An introduction to the techniques of Geometric Invariant Theory via a detailed analysis of the GIT problem for polarized curves.An introduction to the problem of compactifying moduli spaces through an.We investigate GIT quotients of polarized curves. More specifically, we study the GIT problem for the Hilbert and Chow schemes of curves of degree d and genus g in a projective space of dimension d-g, as d decreases with respect to g. We prove that the first three values of d at which the GIT quotients change are given by d=a(2g-2) where a=2, 3.5, 4. We show that, for a>4, L. Caporaso‘s
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