English

Odd order obstructions to the Hasse principle on general K3 surfaces

Algebraic Geometry 2018-08-03 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

We show that odd order transcendental elements of the Brauer group of a K3 surface can obstruct the Hasse principle. We exhibit a general K3 surface YY of degree 2 over Q\mathbb{Q} together with a three torsion Brauer class α\alpha that is unramified at all primes except for 3, but ramifies at all 3-adic points of YY. Motivated by Hodge theory, the pair (Y,α)(Y, \alpha) is constructed from a cubic fourfold XX of discriminant 18 birational to a fibration into sextic del Pezzo surfaces over the projective plane. Notably, our construction does not rely on the presence of a central simple algebra representative for α\alpha. Instead, we prove that a sufficient condition for such a Brauer class to obstruct the Hasse principle is insolubility of the fourfold XX (and hence the fibers) over Q3\mathbb{Q}_3 and local solubility at all other primes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1808.00879,
  title  = {Odd order obstructions to the Hasse principle on general K3 surfaces},
  author = {Jennifer Berg and Anthony Várilly-Alvarado},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.00879},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

22 pages; Magma scripts included as ancillary files in the arXiv distribution

R2 v1 2026-06-23T03:22:57.658Z