On nonnegatively graded Weierstrass points

We provide a new lower bound for the dimension of the moduli space of smooth pointed curves with prescribed Weierstrass semigroup at the marked point, derived from the Deligne-Greuel formula and Pinkham’s equivariant deformation theory. Using Buchweitz’s description of the first cohomology module of the cotangent complex for monomial curves, we show that our lower bound improves a recently one given by Pflueger. By allowing semigroups running over suitable families of symmetric semigroups of multiplicity six, we show that this new lower bound is attained, and that the corresponding moduli spaces are non-empty and of pure dimension.