Related papers: Conic bundles with nontrivial unramified Brauer gr…

We study the stable rationality problem for quadric and cubic surface bundles over surfaces from the point of view of the degeneration method for the Chow group of 0-cycles. Our main result is that a very general hypersurface X of bidegree…

We establish a formula for computing the unramified Brauer group of tame conic bundle threefolds in characteristic 2. The formula depends on the arrangement and residue double covers of the discriminant components, the latter being governed…

A double cover $Y$ of $\mathbb{P}^1 \times \mathbb{P}^2$ ramified over a general $(2,2)$-divisor will have the structure of a geometrically standard conic bundle ramified over a smooth plane quartic $\Delta \subset \mathbb{P}^2$ via the…

Let $X$ be an irreducible smooth complex projective curve of genus at least two. Let $N$ be a connected component of the moduli space of semistable principal ${\rm PGL}_r({\mathbb C})$- bundles over $X$; it is a normal unirational complex…

We isolate a class of smooth rational cubic fourfolds X containing a plane whose associated quadric surface bundle does not have a rational section. This is equivalent to the nontriviality of the Brauer class of the even Clifford algebra…

We undertake a study of conic bundle threefolds $\pi\colon X\to W$ over geometrically rational surfaces whose associated discriminant covers $\tilde{\Delta}\to\Delta\subset W$ are smooth and geometrically irreducible. First, we determine…

We give a sufficient condition for a Brauer-Severi surface bundle over a rational 3-fold to not be stably rational. Additionally, we present an example that satisfies this condition and demonstrate the existence of families of Brauer-Severi…

We study the Brauer groups of regular conic bundles over elliptic curves defined over a number field $k$. We explicitly compute the Brauer group of the conic bundle when the singular fibres lie above $k$-points that are divisible by $2$ in…

For conic bundles on a smooth variety (over a field of characteristic $\ne 2$) which degenerate into pairs of distinct lines over geometric points of a smooth divisor, we prove a theorem which relates the Brauer class of the non-degenerate…

Given a nondegenerate ternary form $f=f(x_1,x_2,x_3)$ of degree 4 over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, we use the geometry of K3 surfaces and van den Bergh's correspondence between representations of the generalized…

Let C be an irreducible smooth projective curve, of genus at least two, defined over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. For a fixed line bundle L on C, let M_C(r,L) be the coarse moduli space of semistable vector bundles…

We prove that the moduli spaces of framed bundles over a smooth projective curve are rational. We compute the Brauer group of these moduli spaces to be zero under some assumption on the stability parameter.

We study the geometry of exceptional loci of birational contractions of hyper-K\"ahler fourfolds that are of K3$^{[2]}$-type. These loci are conic bundles over K3 surfaces and we determine their classes in the Brauer group. For this we use…

Let X --> P^2 be a p-cyclic cover branched over a smooth, connected curve C of degree divisible by p, defined over a separably closed field of prime-to-p characteristic. We show that all (unramified) p-torsion Brauer classes on X that are…

Let k be an arbitrary field of characteristic zero. In this paper we study quotients of k-rational conic bundles over projective line by finite groups of automorphisms. We construct smooth minimal models for such quotients. We show that any…

Take an irreducible smooth complex projective curve $X$ of genus $g$, with $g\,\geq\, 3$. Let $r$ be an even positive integer. We prove that the Brauer group of the moduli stack of stable parabolic $\textnormal{PSp}(r,\mathbb{C})$--bundles…

We present an algorithm to compute the Brauer group of involution surface bundles over rational surfaces.

Let ${\mathcal P}{\mathcal M}^\alpha_s$ be a moduli space of stable parabolic vector bundles of rank $n \geq 2$ and fixed determinant of degree $d$ over a compact connected Riemann surface $X$ of genus $g(X) \geq 2$. If $g(X) = 2$, then we…

We prove a general specialization theorem which implies stable irrationality for a wide class of quadric surface bundles over rational surfaces. As an application, we solve with the exception of two cases, the stable rationality problem for…

This is a survey of recent examples of varieties that are not stably rational. We review the specialization method based on properties of the Chow group of zero-cycles used in these examples and explain the point of view of unramified…