English

A positive proportion of plane cubics fail the Hasse principle

Number Theory 2014-02-06 v1 Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

When all ternary cubic forms over Z\mathbb Z are ordered by the heights of their coefficients, we show that a positive proportion of them fail the Hasse principle, i.e., they have a zero over every completion of Q\mathbb Q but no zero over Q\mathbb Q. We also show that a positive proportion of all ternary cubic forms over Z\mathbb Z nontrivially satisfy the Hasse principle, i.e., they possess a zero over every completion of Q\mathbb Q and also possess a zero over Q\mathbb Q. Analogous results are proven for other genus one models, namely, for equations of the form z2=f(x,y)z^2=f(x,y) where ff is a binary quartic form over Z\mathbb Z, and for intersections of pairs of quadrics in P3\mathbb P^3.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.1402.1131,
  title  = {A positive proportion of plane cubics fail the Hasse principle},
  author = {Manjul Bhargava},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.1131},
  year   = {2014}
}

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15 pages