Divisors on the Moduli Space of Curves From Divisorial Conditions On Hypersurfaces

In this note, we extend work of Farkas and Rim��nyi on applying quadric rank loci to finding divisors of small slope on the moduli space of curves by instead considering all divisorial conditions on the hypersurfaces of a fixed degree containing a projective curve. This gives rise to a large family of virtual divisors on $\overline{\mathcal{M}_g}$. We determine explicitly which of these divisors are candidate counterexamples to the Slope Conjecture. The potential counterexamples exist on $\overline{\mathcal{M}_g}$, where the set of possible values of $g\in \{1,\ldots,N\}$ has density $��(\log(N)^{-0.087})$ for $N>>0$. Furthermore, no divisorial condition defined using hypersurfaces of degree greater than 2 give counterexamples to the Slope Conjecture, and every divisor in our family has slope at least $6+\frac{8}{g+1}$.
Revised according to referee comments, to appear in Experimental Mathematics