We consider the moduli space of genus 4 curves endowed with a $g^1_3$ (which maps with degree 2 onto the moduli space of genus 4 curves). We prove that it defines a degree $\frac {1}{2}(3^{10}-1)$ cover of the nine-dimensional Deligne–Mostow ball quotient such that the natural divisors that live on that moduli space become totally geodesic (their normalizations are eight-dimensional ball quotients). This isomorphism differs from the one considered by S. Kondō, and its construction is perhaps more elementary, as it does not involve K3 surfaces and their Torelli theorem: the Deligne–Mostow ball quotient parametrizes certain cyclic covers of degree 6 of a projective line and we show how a level structure on such a cover produces a degree 3 cover of that line with the same discriminant, yielding a genus 4 curve endowed with a $g^1_3$.

Let $X$ be an irreducible complex-analytic variety, ${\mathcal{S}}$ a stratification of $X$ and ${\mathcal{F}}$ a holomorphic vector bundle on the open stratum ${X\unicode[STIX]{x0030A}}$. We give geometric conditions on ${\mathcal{S}}$ and ${\mathcal{F}}$ that produce a natural lift of the Chern class $\operatorname{c}_{k}({\mathcal{F}})\in H^{2k}({X\unicode[STIX]{x0030A}};\mathbb{C})$ to $H^{2k}(X;\mathbb{C})$, which, in the algebraic setting, is of Hodge level ${\geqslant}k$. When applied to the Baily–Borel compactification $X$ of a locally symmetric variety ${X\unicode[STIX]{x0030A}}$ and an automorphic vector bundle ${\mathcal{F}}$ on ${X\unicode[STIX]{x0030A}}$, this refines a theorem of Goresky–Pardon. In passing we define a class of simplicial resolutions of the Baily–Borel compactification that can be used to define its mixed Hodge structure. We use this to show that the stable cohomology of the Satake ($=$ Baily–Borel) compactification of ${\mathcal{A}}_{g}$ contains nontrivial Tate extensions.

We investigate subgroups of $\text{SL}(n,\mathbb{Z})$ which preserve an open nondegenerate convex cone in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ and admit in that cone as fundamental domain a polyhedral cone of which some faces are allowed to lie on the boundary. Examples are arithmetic groups acting on self-dual cones, Weyl groups of certain Kac–Moody algebras, and they do occur in algebraic geometry as the automorphism groups of projective manifolds acting on their ample cones.

Allcock, Carlson and Toledo defined a period map for cubic threefolds which takes values in a ball quotient of dimension 10. A theorem of Voisin implies that this is an open embedding. We determine its image and show that on the algebraic level this amounts to identification of the algebra of $\operatorname{SL}(5,\mathbb{C})$-invariant polynomials on the representation space $\operatorname{Sym}^3(\mathbb{C}^5)^*$ with an explicitly described algebra of meromorphic automorphic forms on the complex 10-ball.