Related papers: Affine congruences and rational points on a certai…

A conjecture of Coleman implies that only finitely many quaternion algebras over the rational numbers can be the endomorphism $\mathbf{Q}$-algebras of abelian surfaces over the complex numbers which can be defined over $\mathbf{Q}$. One may…

We study the equation for improper (parabolic) affine spheres from the view point of contact geometry and provide the generic classification of singularities appearing in geometric solutions to the equation as well as their duals. We also…

In this paper we compute the distributions of various markings on smooth cubic surfaces defined over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, for example the distribution of pairs of points, `tritangents' or `double sixes'. We also compute the…

We consider diagonal cubic surfaces defined by an equation of the form ax^3+by^3+cz^3+dt^3 = 0. Numerically, one can find all rational points of height < B for B in the range of up to 100 000, thanks to a program due to D. J. Bernstein. On…

This is a survey of the geometry of complex cubic fourfolds with a view toward rationality questions. Topics include classical constructions of rational examples, Hodge structures and special cubic fourfolds, associated K3 surfaces and…

We describe smooth rational projective algebraic surfaces X, over an algebraically closed field of characteristic different from 2, having an even set of four disjoint (-2)-curves N_1,...,N_4, i.e. such that N_1+...+N_4 is divisible by 2 in…

The Eckardt hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^{19}$ parameterizes smooth cubic surfaces with an Eckardt point, which is a point common to three of the $27$ lines on a smooth cubic surface. We describe the cubic surfaces lying on the singular…

We study the congruence of bitangent lines of an irreducible surface in the 3-dimensional projective space in arbitrary characteristic, with special attention to quartic surfaces with rational double points and, in particular, Kummer…

The families of smooth rational surfaces in $\PP^4$ have been classified in degree $\le 10$. All known rational surfaces in $\PP^4$ can be represented as blow-ups of the plane $\PP^2$. The fine classification of these surfaces consists of…

We prove that there exist rational but not uniformly rational smooth algebraic varieties. The proof is based on computing a certain numerical obstruction developed in the case of compactifications of affine spaces. We show that for some…

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…

Let $S$ be a smooth cubic surface over a finite field $\mathbb F_q$. It is known that $\#S(\mathbb F_q) = 1 + aq + q^2$ for some $a \in \{-2,-1,0,1,2,3,4,5,7\}$. Serre has asked which values of a can arise for a given $q$. Building on…

Let $X$ be an algebraic variety, defined over the rationals. This paper gives upper bounds for the number of rational points on $X$, with height at most $B$, for the case in which $X$ is a curve or a surface. In the latter case one excludes…

It is proved that the number of deformation types of complex structures on a fixed oriented smooth four-manifold can be arbitrarily large. The considered examples are locally simple abelian covers of rational surfaces.

In this paper we are interested in defining affine structures on discrete quadrangular surfaces of the affine three-space. We introduce, in a constructive way, two classes of such surfaces, called respectively indefinite and definite…

Here is a square problem: in a unit square, is there a point with four rational distances to the vertices? A probability argument suggests a negative answer. This paper proves several special cases of the square problem: if the point sits…

We study the rationality of the intersection points of certain lines and smooth plane quartics C defined over F_q. For q \geq 127, we prove the existence of a line such that the intersection points with C are all rational. Using another…

It is a classical result that there are $12$ (irreducible) rational cubic curves through $8$ generic points in $\mathbb{P}_{\mathbb{C}}^2$, but little is known about the non-generic cases. The space of $8$-point configurations is…

Let $X$ be a smooth projective algebraic variety over a number field $k$ and $P$ in $X(k)$. In 2007, the second author conjectured that, in a precise sense, if rational points on $X$ are dense enough, then the best rational approximations…

We consider an integrable system in five unknowns having three quartics invariants. We show that the complex affine variety defined by putting these invariants equal to generic constants, completes into an abelian surface; the jacobian of a…