Related papers: A note on rational surfaces in projective four-spa…
Cubic fourfolds of discriminant 24 contain special codimension-two algebraic cycles of degree 6 and self-intersection 20. Such cycles may be represented by singular scrolls or del Pezzo surfaces. A discriminant 24 cubic fourfold gives rise…
We completely classify all plane curves of degree at most 30 with a unique cuspidal (locally unibranch) singular point and rational normalization in terms of the Newton pairs parameterizing the cusp. We distinguish between prime and…
Among geometrically rational surfaces, del Pezzo surfaces of degree two over a field k containing at least one point are arguably the simplest that are not known to be unirational over k. Looking for k-rational curves on these surfaces, we…
Let $S \subset \P^n$ be a smooth quartic hypersurface defined over a number field $K$. If $n \ge 4$, then for some finite extension $K'$ of $K$ the set $S(K')$ of $K'$-rational points of $S$ is Zariski dense.
Quadratic points of a surface in the projective 3-space are the points which can be exceptionally well approximated by a quadric. They are also singularities of a 3-web in the elliptic part and of a line field in the hyperbolic part of the…
A cubic hypersurface in $\mathbb{P}^n$ defined over $\mathbb{Q}$ is given by the vanishing locus of a cubic form $f$ in $n+1$ variables. It is conjectured that when $n \geq 4$, such cubic hypersurfaces satisfy the Hasse principle. This is…
We establish estimates for the number of solutions of certain affine congruences. These estimates are then used to prove Manin's conjecture for a cubic surface split over Q and whose singularity type is D_4. This improves on a result of…
We exhibit a smooth complex rational affine surface with uncountably many nonisomorphic real forms.
It is proved that the degree of a morphism from a smooth projective n-fold with Picard number one to a smooth n-quadric is bounded (provided, of course, that n is at least three). Actually it has been proved some years ago, but I have never…
Consider a finite scheme of length l contained in a smooth quadric surface over the complex numbers. We determine the number of linearly independent curves passing through the scheme, of degree at least l - 1.
New historical aspects of the classification, by Cayley and Cremona, of ruled quartic surfaces and the relation to string models and plaster models are presented. In a `modern' treatment of the classification of ruled quartic surfaces the…
In this paper we provide, first, a general symbolic algorithm for computing the symmetries of a given rational surface, based on the classical differential invariants of surfaces, i.e. Gauss curvature and mean curvature. In practice, the…
Let $f(x)=x^5+ax^3+bx^2+cx \in \Z[x]$ and consider the hypersurface of degree five given by the equation \cal{V}_{f}: f(p)+f(q)=f(r)+f(s). Under the assumption $b\neq 0$ we show that there exists $\Q$-unirational elliptic surface contained…
We improve a bound due to the second author on number of rational points on smooth surfaces in $\mathbb{P}^3$ over finite fields and look at families of surfaces that achieve or nearly achieve this bound, for which we compute their exact…
We consider elliptic surfaces whose coefficients are degree $2$ polynomials in a variable $T$. It was recently shown that for infinitely many rational values of $T$ the resulting elliptic curves have rank at least $1$. In this article, we…
It is known that the smooth rational threefolds of P^5 having a rational non-special surface of P^4 as general hyperplane section have degree d=3,... ,7. We study such threefolds X from the point of view of linear systems of surfaces in…
Let $Z$ be a projective geometrically integral algebraic variety. This paper is concerned with estimating the number of rational points on $Z$ which have height at most $B$. The bounds obtained are uniform in varieties of fixed degree and…
We compute the dynamical degrees of certain compositions of reflections in points on a smooth cubic fourfold. Our interest in these computations stems from the irrationality problem for cubic fourfolds. Namely, we hope that they will…
From a topological viewpoint, a rational curve in the real projective plane is generically a smoothly immersed circle and a finite collection of isolated points. We give an isotopy classification of generic rational quintics in…
We classify the singularities of a surface ruled by conics: they are rational double points of type $A_n$ or $D_n$. This is proved by showing that they arise from a precise series of blow-ups of a suitable surface geometrically ruled by…