What are the odds that a conic bundle over a finite field is rational?
Algebraic Geometry
2026-07-17 v1
Abstract
We study rationality of conic bundles over finite fields defined over the line. In particular, for a fixed number of degenerate fibers, what is the proportion of good conic bundles that are rational over a finite field of order ? The Galois action on their Picard groups factors through the Weyl group , reducing rationality to a condition on signed permutation types. Using work of Colliot-Th\'el\`ene and Yang together with Chebotarev density, we compute the asymptotic proportion of such conic bundles that are rational as goes to infinity.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.15997,
title = {What are the odds that a conic bundle over a finite field is rational?},
author = {Amanda Hernandez},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.15997},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
19 pages, 1 figure