GIT Constructions of Compactified Universal Jacobians over Stacks of Stable Maps

Abstract: We prove that any compactified universal Jacobian over any stack of stable maps, defined using torsion-free sheaves which are Gieseker semistable with respect to a relatively ample invertible sheaf over the universal curve, admits a projective good moduli space which can be constructed using GIT, and that the same is true for analogues parametrising semistable sheaves of higher rank. We also prove that for different choices of invertible sheaves, the corresponding good moduli spaces are related by a finite number of "Thaddeus flips". As a special case of our methods, we provide a new GIT construction of the universal Picard variety of Caporaso and Pandharipande.