We establish a formula for computing the unramified Brauer group of tame conic bundle threefolds in characteristic 2. The formula depends on the arrangement and residue double covers of the discriminant components, the latter being governed by Artin-Schreier theory (instead of Kummer theory in characteristic not 2). We use this to give new examples of threefold conic bundles defined over the integers that are not stably rational over the complex numbers.
We derive a formula for the unramified Brauer group of a general class of rationally connected fourfolds birational to conic bundles over smooth threefolds. We produce new examples of conic bundles over P^3 where this formula applies and which have nontrivial unramified Brauer group. The construction uses the theory of contact surfaces and, at least implicitly, matrix factorizations and symmetric arithmetic Cohen--Macaulay sheaves, as well as the geometry of special arrangements of rational curves in P^2. We also prove the existence of universally CH_0-trivial resolutions for the general class of conic bundle fourfolds we consider. Using the degeneration method, we thus produce new families of rationally connected fourfolds whose very general member is not stably rational.
Let $F$ be a field of characteristic 2 and let $X$ be a smooth projective quadric of dimension $ge 1$ over $F$. We study the unramified cohomology groups with 2-primary torsion coefficients of $X$ in degrees 2 and 3. We determine completely the kernel and the cokernel of the natural map from the cohomology of $F$ to the unramified cohomology of $X$. This extends the results in characteristic different from 2 obtained by Kahn, Rost and Sujatha in the nineteen-nineties.
We study the groups of biholomorphic and bimeromorphic automorphisms of conic bundles over certain compact complex manifolds of algebraic dimension zero.
A group $G$ is called Jordan if there is a positive integer $J=J_G$ such that every finite subgroup $mathcal{B}$ of $G$ contains a commutative subgroup $mathcal{A}subset mathcal{B}$ such that $mathcal{A}$ is normal in $mathcal{B}$ and the index $[mathcal{B}:mathcal{A}] le J$ (V.L. Popov). In this paper we deal with Jordaness properties of the groups $Bir(X)$ of birational automorphisms of irreducible smooth projective varieties $X$ over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. It is known (Yu. Prokhorov - C. Shramov) that $Bir(X)$ is Jordan if $X$ is non-uniruled. On the other hand, the second named author proved that $Bir(X)$ is not Jordan if $X$ is birational to a product of the projective line and a positive-dimensional abelian variety. We prove that $Bir(X)$ is Jordan if (uniruled) $X$ is a conic bundle over a non-uniruled variety $Y$ but is not birational to a product of $Y$ and the projective line. (Such a conic bundle exists only if $dim(Y)ge 2$.) When $Y$ is an abelian surface, this Jordaness property result gives an answer to a question of Prokhorov and Shramov.
Let $k$ be a field finitely generated over the finite field $mathbb F_p$ of odd characteristic $p$. For any K3 surface $X$ over $k$ we prove that the prime to $p$ component of the cokernel of the natural map $Br(k)to Br(X)$ is finite.