Related papers: A transfer principle for unirationality
We show that complex Fano hypersurfaces can have arbitrarily large degrees of irrationality. More precisely, if we fix a Fano index e, then the degree of irrationality of a very general complex Fano hypersurface of index e and dimension n…
We prove that hypersurfaces defined by irreducible square-free polynomials have rational singularities. As an easy consequence, we deduce that certain (possibly non-square-free) polynomials associated to pairs of square-free polynomials…
We give the first evidence for a conjecture that a general, index-one, Fano hypersurface is not unirational: (i) a general point of the hypersurface is contained in no rational surface ruled, roughly, by low-degree rational curves, and (ii)…
We present an example of a strictly positive polynomial with rational coefficients that can be decomposed as a sum of squares of polynomials over $\R$ but not over $\Q$. This answers an open question by C. Scheiderer posed as the second…
A very general hypersurface of dimension $n$ and degree $d$ in complex projective space is rational if $d \leq 2$, but is expected to be irrational for all $n, d \geq 3$. Hypersurfaces in weighted projective space with degree small relative…
We present a variant of the classical Darboux-Jouanolou Theorem. Our main result provides a characterization of foliations which are pull-backs of foliations on surfaces by rational maps. As an application, we provide a structure theorem…
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 $\mathscr{X}\to W$ be a flat family of generically irreducible hypersurfaces of degree $d\geq 2$ in $\PP^n$ with singular locus of dimension $t$, with $W$ unirational of dimension $r$. We prove that if $n$ is large enough with respect…
For a subvariety of a smooth projective variety, consider the family of smooth hypersurfaces of sufficiently large degree containing it, and take the quotient of the middle cohomology of the hypersurfaces by the cohomology of the ambient…
We find new lower bounds on the torsion orders of very general Fano hypersurfaces over (uncountable) fields of arbitrary characteristic. Our results imply that unirational parametrizations of most Fano hypersurfaces need to have enormously…
We show that the intersection of the irreducible components of a hypersurface defined by a polynomial with square-free support has F-rational singularities in characteristic $p>0$. As a consequence, we obtain that hypersurfaces defined by…
The following theorem, which includes as very special cases results of Jouanolou and Hrushovski on algebraic $D$-varieties on the one hand, and of Cantat on rational dynamics on the other, is established: Working over a field of…
We prove that a general Fano hypersurface in a projective space over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic is separably rationally connected.
We give partial generalizations of the classical Descartes' rule of signs to multivariate polynomials (with real exponents), in the sense that we provide upper bounds on the number of connected components of the complement of a hypersurface…
Let $\Gamma$ be the fundamental group of a closed orientable surface of genus at least two. Consider the composition of a uniformly random element of $\mathrm{Hom}(\Gamma,S_n)$ with the $(n-1)$-dimensional irreducible representation of…
We study various measures of irrationality for hypersurfaces of large degree in projective space and other varieties. These include the least degree of a rational covering of projective space, and the minimal gonality of a covering family…
We consider polynomials on the intersection of the closed positive orthant with the height-$1$ level hypersurface of certain polynomials with positive coefficients. We show that any polynomial strictly positive on such a semi-algebraic set…
A theorem due to Kazhdan and Ziegler implies that, by substituting linear forms for its variables, a homogeneous polynomial of sufficiently high strength specialises to any given polynomial of the same degree in a bounded number of…
We show that the Debarre-de Jong conjecture that the Fano scheme of lines on a smooth hypersurface of degree at most n in n-dimensional projective space must have its expected dimension, and the Beheshti-Starr conjecture that bounds the…
We build a bridge from density combinatorics to dimension theory of continued fractions. We establish a fractal transference principle that transfers common properties of subsets of $\mathbb N$ with positive upper density to properties of…