In algebraic geometry, the quotient space of an algebraic stack F, denoted by |F|, is a topological space which as a set is the set of all integral substacks of F and which then is given a "Zariski topology": an open subset has a form | U | ⊂ | F | {\displaystyle |U|\subset |F|} for some open substack U of F. The construction X ↦ | X | {\displaystyle X\mapsto |X|} is functorial; i.e., each morphism f : X → Y {\displaystyle f:X\to Y} of algebraic stacks determines a continuous map f : | X | → | Y | {\displaystyle f:|X|\to |Y|} . An algebraic stack X is punctual if | X | {\displaystyle |X|} is a point. When X is a moduli stack, the quotient space | X | {\displaystyle |X|} is called the moduli space of X. If f : X → Y {\displaystyle f:X\to Y} is a morphism of algebraic stacks that induces a homeomorphism f : | X | → ∼ | Y | {\displaystyle f:|X|{\overset {\sim }{\to }}|Y|} , then Y is called a coarse moduli stack of X. ("The" coarse moduli requires a universality.)
References
H. Gillet, Intersection theory on algebraic stacks and Q-varieties, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 34 (1984), 193–240, Proceedings of the Luminy conference on algebraic K-theory (Luminy, 1983).
