A note on cycles of curves in a product of pairs

We discuss the role of subdivisions of tropical moduli spaces in logarithmic Gromov-Witten theory, and use them to study the virtual class of curves in a product of pairs. Our main result is that the cycle-valued logarithmic Gromov-Witten theory of $X\times Y$ decomposes into a product of pieces coming from $X$ and $Y$, but this decomposition must be considered in a blowup of the moduli space of curves. This blowup is specified by tropical moduli data. As an application, we show that the cycle of curves in a toric variety with fixed contact orders is a product of virtual strict transforms of double ramification cycles. The formalism we outline offers a unified viewpoint on a number of recent results in logarithmic Gromov-Witten theory, including works of Herr, Holmes-Pixton-Schmitt, and Nabijou and the author.Comment: 12 pages. Comments are welcom