English

The rationality problem for forms of $\overline{M_{0, n}}$

Algebraic Geometry 2017-12-13 v1 Group Theory Number Theory

Abstract

Let XX be a del Pezzo surface of degree 55 defined over a field FF. A theorem of Yu. I. Manin and P. Swinnerton-Dyer asserts that every Del Pezzo surface of degree 55 is rational. In this paper we generalize this result as follows. Recall that del Pezzo surfaces of degree 55 over a field FF are precisely the twisted FF-forms of the moduli space M0,5\overline{M_{0, 5}} of stable curves of genus 00 with 55 marked points. Suppose n5n \geq 5 is an integer, and FF is an infinite field of characteristic 2\neq 2. It is easy to see that every twisted FF-form of M0,n\overline{M_{0, n}} is unirational over FF. We show that (a) if nn is odd, then every twisted FF-form of M0,n\overline{M_{0, n}} is rational over FF. (b) If nn is even, there exists a field extension F/kF/k and a twisted FF-form XX of M0,n\overline{M_{0, n}} such that XX is not retract rational over FF.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1709.05698,
  title  = {The rationality problem for forms of $\overline{M_{0, n}}$},
  author = {Mathieu Florence and Zinovy Reichstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.05698},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

12 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:46:02.242Z