Related papers: Nonrational varieties with unirational parametriza…
In this short note we try to generalize the Clemens-Griffiths criterion of non-rationality for smooth cubic threefolds to the case of smooth cubic fourfolds.
A new proof of the non-rationality of a generic cubic threefold is given as follows: If a generic cubic threefold were rational then the associated intermediate Jacobian would be a product of Jacobians of curves. We degenerate a generic…
We use the Clemens-Griffiths method to construct smooth projective threefolds, over any field $k$ admitting a separable quadratic extension, that are $k$-unirational and $\bar{k}$-rational but not $k$-rational. When $k=\mathbb{R}$, we can…
We develop a theory of Prym varieties and cubic threefolds over fields of characteristic $2$. As an application, we prove that smooth cubic threefolds are non-rational over an arbitrary field and solve a conjecture of Deligne regarding…
We prove that every Hassett's Noether-Lefschetz divisor of special cubic fourfolds contains a union of three codimension-two subvarieties, parametrizing rational cubic fourfolds, in the moduli space of smooth cubic fourfolds.
An arithmetic method of proving the irrationality of smooth projective 3-folds is described, using reduction modulo $p$. It is illustrated by an application to a cubic threefold, for which the hypothesis that its intermediate Jacobian is…
It is well known since Noether that the gonality of a smooth plane curve of degree d>3 is d-1. Given a k-dimensional complex projective variety X, the most natural extension of gonality is probably the degree of irrationality, that is the…
A well known conjecture asserts that a cubic fourfold X is rational if it has a cohomologically associated K3 surface. G.Ouchi proved that if X admits a finite group G of symplectic automorphisms, whose order is different from 2, then X has…
In characteristic $p>0$ and for $q$ a power of $p$, we compute the number of nonplanar rational curves of arbitrary degrees on a smooth Hermitian surface of degree $q+1$ under the assumption that the curves have a parametrization given by…
We investigate basic properties of uniformly rational varieties, i.e. those smooth varieties for which every point has a Zariski open neighborhood isomorphic to an open subset of A^n. It is an open question of Gromov whether all smooth…
The object of this note is the moduli spaces of cubic fourfolds (resp., Gushel-Mukai fourfolds) which contain some special rational surfaces. Under some hypotheses on the families of such surfaces, we develop a general method to show the…
We show that even dimensional Fermat cubic hypersurfaces are rational over any field of characteristic different from three by producing explicit rational parametrizations given by polynomials of low degree. As a byproduct of our…
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.
We develop the basic and new tools for classifying non-side-to-side tilings of the sphere by congruent triangles. Then we prove that, if the triangle has any irrational angle in degree, such tilings are: a sequence of 1-parameter families…
For any $n\geq 3$, we prove that there exist equivalences between these apparently unrelated objects: irreducible $n$-dimensional non degenerate projective varieties $X\subset \mathbb P^{2n+1}$ different from rational normal scrolls and…
We study the rationality of some geometrically rational three-dimensional conic and quadric surface bundles, defined over the reals and more general real closed fields, for which the real locus is connected and the intermediate Jacobian…
This is a series of two papers in which we solve the Clemens conjecture: there are only finitely many smooth rational curves of each degree in a generic quintic threefold. In this first paper, we deal with a family of smooth Calabi-Yau…
In this note we present some results concerning the unirationality of the algebraic variety $\cal{S}_{f}$ given by the equation \begin{equation*} N_{K/k}(X_{1}+\alpha X_{2}+\alpha^2 X_{3})=f(t), \end{equation*} where $k$ is a number field,…
A variety is unirational if it is dominated by a rational variety. A variety is rationally connected if two general points can be joined by a rational curve. This paper aims to show that the two notions can cooperate and, building on…
We prove several results on the number of rational points on open subsets of Kummer varieties of arbitrary dimension. Some of our results are unconditional, and others depend on the Parity Conjecture (a corollary of the Conjecture of Birch…