Related papers: On Unirationality of Quartics over non Algebraical…

Segre proved that a smooth cubic surface over Q is unirational iff it has a rational point. We prove that the result also holds for cubic hypersurfaces over any field, including finite fields.

Let $X_4\subset\mathbb{P}^{n+1}$ be a quartic hypersurface of dimension $n\geq 4$ over an infinite field $k$. We show that if either $X_4$ contains a linear subspace $\Lambda$ of dimension $h\geq \max\{2,\dim(\Lambda\cap…

We propose and compare various techiques available to produce smooth cubic hypersurfaces over a non-algebraically-closed field which have rational points but which are not stably rational over their ground field.

Let X be a smooth quartic surface not containing lines, defined over a number field K. We prove that there are only finitely many bitangents to X which are defined over K. This result can be interpreted as saying that a certain surface,…

For any field k of characteristic at most 5 we exhibit an explicit smooth quartic surface in projective threespace over k with trivial automorphism group over the algebraic closure of k. We also show how this can be extended to higher…

We prove analogues of several well-known results concerning rational morphisms between quadrics for the class of so-called quasilinear $p$-hypersurfaces. These hypersurfaces are nowhere smooth over the base field, so many of the geometric…

Building on work of Segre and Koll'ar on cubic hypersurfaces, we construct over imperfect fields of characteristic p\geq 3 particular hypersurfaces of degree p, which show that geometrically rational schemes that are regular and whose…

Among geometrically rational surfaces, del Pezzo surfaces of degree two over a field k containing at least one point are arguably the simplest that are not known to be unirational over k. Looking for k-rational curves on these surfaces, we…

Yanchevski\u{i} had asked whether conic bundle surfaces over $\mathbf{P}^1_k$ are unirational when $k$ is a finite field. We give a partial answer to his question by showing that for quasi-finite fields $k$ (e.g. finite fields) a regular…

We prove that supersingular K3 surfaces over algebraically closed fields of characteristic at least $5$ are unirational, following a simplified form of Liedtke's strategy.

Let X be a projective hypersurface in P_k^n of degree d <= n. In this paper we study the relation between the class [X] in K_0(Var_k) and the existence of k-rational points. Using elementary geometric methods we show, for some particular X,…

We study rationality properties of quadric surface bundles over the projective plane. We exhibit families of smooth projective complex fourfolds of this type over connected bases, containing both rational and non-rational fibers.

We show that there cannot be more than 64 lines on a quartic surface admitting isolated rational double points over an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p \neq 2,\,3$, thus extending Segre--Rams--Sch\"utt theorem. Our proof…

We prove that a general $n$-fold quadric bundle $\mathcal{Q}^{n-1}\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^{1}$, over a number field, with $(-K_{\mathcal{Q}^{n-1}})^n > 0$ and discriminant of odd degree $\delta_{\mathcal{Q}^{n-1}}$ is unirational, and that…

We study rationality constructions for smooth complete intersections of two quadrics over nonclosed fields. Over the real numbers, we establish a criterion for rationality in dimension four.

We apply the specialization technique based on the decomposition of the diagonal to find an explicit example over $\mathbb{Q}$ of a quadric and cubic hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^6$ such that their intersection is a smooth stably irrational…

We describe a method to show a plane quartic over a number field has no rational points. The method can be adapted to show that a curve does not have divisors of degree 1 or 2 and can be generalized to arbitrary smooth projective curves.…

We prove that a three-dimensional smooth complete intersection of two quadrics over a field k is k-rational if and only if it contains a line defined over k. To do so, we develop a theory of intermediate Jacobians for geometrically rational…

We study rationality problems for smooth complete intersections of two quadrics. We focus on the three-dimensional case, with a view toward understanding the invariants governing the rationality of a geometrically rational threefold over a…

We study the rationality of some geometrically rational three-dimensional conic and quadric surface bundles, defined over the reals and more general real closed fields, for which the real locus is connected and the intermediate Jacobian…