Related papers: Stable rationality of quadric and cubic surface bu…

Let $\Bbbk$ be any field of characteristic zero, $X$ be a del Pezzo surface of degree~$2$ and $G$ be a group acting on $X$. In this paper we study $\Bbbk$-rationality questions for the quotient surface $X / G$. If there are no smooth…

We prove that very general non-rational Fano threefolds which are not birational to cubic threefolds are not stably rational.

For a general cubic fourfold $X \subset \mathbb{P}^5$, we compute the Hodge numbers of the locus $S \subset F$ of lines of second type. We also give an upper bound of 6 for the degree of irrationality of the Fano scheme of lines of any…

Motivated by a similar result of Dumnicki, K\"uronya, Maclean and Szemberg under a slightly stronger hypothesis, we exhibit irrational single-point Seshadri constants on a rational surface $X$ obtained by blowing up very general points of…

We prove that if a symplectic 4-manifold $X$ becomes a rational 4-manifold after applying rational blow-down surgery, then the symplectic 4-manifold $X$ is originally rational. That is, a symplectic rational blow-up of a rational symplectic…

We study the arithmetic of del Pezzo surfaces $Y$ of degree 2 over a function field, and in particular, the cokernel of the homomorphism from the Picard group to the Galois-invariants of the geometric Picard group $\operatorname{Pic} Y…

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 consider the moduli space of parabolic connections with rational generic weights over a compact Riemann surface of genus $g \geq 3$. We determine the Chow group of the moduli space of parabolic connections such that the underlying…

Using the isomorphism between the moduli space of polarized K3 surfaces of genus 14 and the moduli space of special cubic fourfolds of discriminant 26, we establish the rationality of the universal K3 surface of genus 14. Precisely, we show…

We study autoequivalences and stability conditions on the derived category of coherent sheaves on a singular surface $X$ which arises as an open subvariety of a type III Kulikov degeneration of K3 surfaces. The surface $X$ consists of four…

We study the density of everywhere locally soluble diagonal quadric surfaces, parameterised by rational points that lie on a split quadric surface.

We prove that a very general complex hypersurface of degree $n+1$ in $\mathbb{P}^{n+1}$ containing an $r$-plane with multiplicity $m$ is not stably rational for $n \ge 3$, $m, r > 0$ and $n \ge m+r$. We also investigate failure of stable…

We study the higher Chow groups $CH^2(X,1)$ and $CH^3(X,2)$ of smooth, projective algebraic surfaces over a field of char 0. We develop a theoretical framework to study them by using so-called higher normal functions and higher…

There are three types of involutions on a cubic fourfold; two of anti-symplectic type, and one symplectic. Here we show that cubics with involutions exhibit the full range of behaviour in relation to rationality conjectures. Namely, we show…

We study an irreducible component H(X) of the Hilbert scheme Hilb^{2t+2}(X) of a smooth cubic hypersurface X containing two disjoint lines. For cubic threefolds, H(X) is always smooth, as shown in arXiv:2010.11622. We provide a second proof…

We consider some families of smooth Fano hypersurfaces $X_{n+2}$ in ${\bf P}^{n+2} \times {\bf P}^3$ given by a homogeneous polynomial of bidegree $(1,3)$. For these varieties we obtain lower bounds for the number of $F$-rational points of…

If $X$ is a projective, geometrically irreducible variety defined over a finite field $\F_q$, such that it is smooth and its Chow group of 0-cycles fulfills base change, i.e. $CH_0(X\times_{\F_q}\bar{\F_q(X)})=\Q$, then the second author's…

We study the moduli space of stable sheaves of Euler characteristic 1 supported on curves of arithmetic genus 3 contained in a smooth quadric surface. We show that this moduli space is rational. We compute its Betti numbers by studying the…

We show that a standard conic bundle over a minimal rational surface is rational and its Jacobian splits as the direct sum of Jacobians of curves if and only if its derived category admits a semiorthogonal decomposition by exceptional…

We investigate birational properties of hypersurfaces of degree $6$ in the weighted projective space $\mathbf{P}(1,1,2,2,3)$. In particular, we prove that any such quasi-smooth hypersurface is not rational.