Related papers: Rationalit\'e d'un fibr\'e en coniques

We consider the question whether a real threefold X fibred into quadric surfaces over the real projective line is stably rational (over R) if the topological space X(R) is connected. We give a counterexample. When all geometric fibres are…

Let U be an open subset of a unirational variety (or more generally of a separably rationally connected variety). We prove that there is rational curve C in U such that the fundamental group of C surjects onto the fundamental group of U.…

Recent results of Hassett, Kuznetsov and others pointed out countably many divisors $C_d$ in the open subset of $\mathbb{P}^{55}=\mathbb{P}(H^0(\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^5}(3)))$ parametrizing all cubic 4-folds and lead to the conjecture that…

We pose some questions about spaces parametrizing rational curves on rationally connected varieties. We give a partial answer for cubic threefolds. Many of our results were previously proved by Iliev, Markushevich and Tikhimirov by…

Let $X$ be a smooth Fano fourfold admitting a conic bundle structure. We show that $X$ is toric if and only if $X$ admits an amplified endomorphism; in this case, $X$ is a rational variety.

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 prove the existence of a family $\mathcal{X}\rightarrow B$ of smooth projective fourfolds, such that the very general fiber $\mathcal{X}_t$ is not stably rational (a fortiori not rational), but some special fibers $\mathcal{X}_t$ are…

A sequence of coefficients that appeared in the evaluation of a rational integral has been shown to be unimodal. An alternative proof is presented.

We prove a characteristic two version of the famous criterion of Artin and Mumford for irrationality of conic bundles. On the one hand, combined with the pathological behaviour of conic bundles in characteristic two, this allows us to…

Any smooth projective curve embeds into $\mathbb{P}^3$. More generally, any curve embeds into a rationally connected variety of dimension at least three. We prove conversely that if every curve embeds in a threefold $X$, then $X$ is…

We exhibit new examples of rational cubic fourfolds, parametrized by a countably infinite union of codimension-two subvarieties in the moduli space. Our examples are fibered in sextic del Pezzo surfaces over the projective plane; they are…

We prove the Manin-Peyre conjecture for the number of rational points of bounded height outside of a thin subset on a family of Fano threefolds of bidegree (1,2). The proof uses a mixture of the circle method and techniques from the…

We obtain a sufficient condition for a Fano threefold with terminal singularities to have a conic bundle structure.

We study the unirationality of surface conic bundles $\pi\colon S\to\mathbb P^1$ over an arbitrary field $k$ with discriminant degree $d_S=8$, the first case beyond the del Pezzo range. We divide these surfaces in four families and produce…

We prove that a very general nonsingular conic bundle $X\rightarrow\mathbb{P}^{n-1}$ embedded in a projective vector bundle of rank $3$ over $\mathbb{P}^{n-1}$ is not stably rational if the anti-canonical divisor of $X$ is not ample and…

We prove that $\mathbb{Q}$-Fano threefolds of Fano index $\ge 8$ are rational.

The aim of this short note is to define the \it universal cubic fourfold \rm over certain loci of their moduli space. Then, we propose two methods to prove that it is unirational over the Hassett divisors $\mathcal{C}_d$, in the range…

Let $X$ be a nonsingular rational variety. We prove that $X\times \mathbb{C}^2$ is uniformly rational. It follows that nonsingular stably rational varieties are stably uniformly rational.

We establish a conjecture of Mumford characterizing rationally connected complex projective manifolds in several cases.

Refereed version to appear in Michigan Mathematical Journal. A mistake in the last section of the previous version has been corrected. The new title exactly describes the main result obtained. Building on the geometry of cubic surfaces and…