We prove new results on splitting Brauer classes by genus 1 curves, settling in particular the case of degree 7 classes over global fields. Though our method is cohomological in nature, and proceeds by considering the more difficult problem of splitt
ing $mu_N$-gerbes, we use crucial input from the arithmetic of modular curves and explicit $N$-descent on elliptic curves.
We prove that a smooth proper universally CH_0-trivial variety X over a field k has universally trivial Brauer group. This fills a gap in the literature concerning the p-torsion of the Brauer group when k has characteristic p.
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 study the stable rationality problem for quadric and cubic surface bundles over surfaces from the point of view of the degeneration method for the Chow group of 0-cycles. Our main result is that a very general hypersurface X of bidegree (2,3) in P
^2 x P^3 is not stably rational. Via projections onto the two factors, X is a cubic surface bundle over P^2 and a conic bundle over P^3, and we analyze the stable rationality problem from both these points of view. This provides another example of a smooth family of rationally connected fourfolds with rational and nonrational fibers. Finally, we introduce new quadric surface bundle fourfolds over P^2 with discriminant curve of any even degree at least 8, having nontrivial unramified Brauer group and admitting a universally CH_0-trivial resolution.
We prove the failure of the local-global principle, with respect to all discrete valuations, for isotropy of quadratic forms over a rational function field of transcendence degree at least 2 over the complex numbers. Our construction involves the gen
eralized Kummer varieties considered by Borcea and Cynk--Hulek.
The standard period-index conjecture for the Brauer group of a field of transcendence degree 2 over a $p$-adic field predicts that the index divides the cube of the period. Using Gabbers theory of prime-to-$ell$ alterations and the deformation theory
of twisted sheaves, we prove that the index divides the fourth power of the period for every Brauer class whose period is prime to $6p$, giving the first uniform period-index bounds over such fields.
In [1309.1899], Ranestad and Voisin showed, quite surprisingly, that the divisor in the moduli space of cubic fourfolds consisting of cubics apolar to a Veronese surface is not a Noether-Lefschetz divisor. We give an independent proof of this by exhi
biting an explicit cubic fourfold X in the divisor and using point counting methods over finite fields to show X is Noether-Lefschetz general. We also show that two other divisors considered in [ibid.] are not Noether-Lefschetz divisors.
Our main goal is to give a sense of recent developments in the (stable) rationality problem from the point of view of unramified cohomology and 0-cycles as well as derived categories and semiorthogonal decompositions, and how these perspectives inter
twine and reflect each other. In particular, in the case of algebraic surfaces, we explain the relationship between Blochs conjecture, Chow-theoretic decompositions of the diagonal, categorical representability, and the existence of phantom subcategories of the derived category.
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 n
ontrivial 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.
We study the birational properties of geometrically rational surfaces from a derived categorical point of view. In particular, we give a criterion for the rationality of a del Pezzo surface over an arbitrary field, namely, that its derived category d
ecomposes into zero-dimensional components. For del Pezzo surfaces of degree at least 5, we construct explicit semiorthogonal decompositions by subcategories of modules over semisimple algebras arising as endomorphism algebras of vector bundles and we show how to retrieve information about the index of the surface from Brauer classes and Chern classes associated to these vector bundles.
