We compute the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular complex plane quartic curves with two marked points. This allows us to calculate the rational cohomology of the moduli space of non-singular complex projective curves of genus three with two marked points.

A polar hypersurface P of a complex analytic hypersurface germ f = 0 can be investigated by analyzing the invariance of certain Newton polyhedra associated with the image of P, with respect to suitable coordinates, by certain morphisms appropriately associated with f. We develop this general principle of Teissier when f = 0 is a quasi-ordinary hyper-surface germ and P is the polar hypersurface associated with any quasi-ordinary projection of f = 0. We show a decomposition of P into bunches of branches which characterizes the embedded topological types of the irreducible components of f = 0. This decomposition is also characterized by some properties of the strict transform of P by the toric embedded resolution of f = 0 given by the second author. In the plane curve case this result provides a simple algebraic proof of a theorem of Lê et al.

We compute the mixed Hodge structure on the rational cohomology of the moduli space of smooth genus 4 curves. Specifically, we prove that its Poincaré–Serre polynomial is 1 + t2u2 + t4u4 + t5u6. We show this by producing a stratification of the space, such that all strata are geometric quotients of complements of discriminants.

Multivariate hypergeometric functions associated with toric varieties were introduced by Gel'fand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky. Singularities of such functions are discriminants, that is, divisors projectively dual to torus orbit closures. We show that most of these potential denominators never appear in rational hypergeometric functions. We conjecture that the denominator of any rational hypergeometric function is a product of resultants, that is, a product of special discriminants arising from Cayley configurations. This conjecture is proved for toric hypersurfaces and for toric varieties of dimension at most three. Toric residues are applied to show that every toric resultant appears in the denominator of some rational hypergeometric function.

Some formulas for multiplicities of pure cubic discriminants are generalized to the case of a pure field of arbitrary odd prime degree.