We study the semi-decomposable invariants of a split semisimple group and their extension to a split reductive group by using the torsion in the codimension $2$ Chow groups of a product of Severi-Brauer varieties. In particular, for any $n\geq 2$ we completely determine the degree $3$ invariants of a split semisimple group, the quotient of $(\operatorname{\mathbf{SL}}_{2})^{n}$ by its maximal central subgroup, as well as of the corresponding split reductive group. We also provide an example illustrating that a modification of our method can be applied to find the semi-decomposable invariants of a split semisimple group of type A.
We provide an alternative proof that the Chow group of $1$-cycles on a Severi--Brauer variety associated to a biquaternion division algebra is torsion-free. There are three proofs of this result in the literature, all of which are due to Karpenko and rely on a clever use of $K$-theory. The proof that we give here, by contrast, is geometric and uses degenerations of quartic elliptic normal curves.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the birational geometry of Generalized Severi-Brauer varieties. A conjecture of Amitsur states that two Severi-Brauer varieties $V(A)$ and $V(B)$ are birational if the underlying central simple algebras $A$ and $B$ are the same degree and generate the same cyclic subgroup of the Brauer group. We present a generalization of this conjecture to Generalized Severi-Brauer varieties, and show that in most cases we may reduce the new conjecture to the case where every subfield of the algebras is maximal, and in particular to the case where the algebras have pri…
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.
In this paper, we generalize a result of Karpenko on the torsion in the second quotient of the gamma filtration for Severi-Brauer varieties to higher degrees. As an application, we provide a nontrivial torsion in higher Chow groups and the topological filtration of the associated generic variety and obtain new upper bounds for the annihilators of the torsion subgroups in the Chow groups of a large class of Severi-Brauer varieties. In particular, using the torsion in higher degrees, we show indecomposability of certain algebras.
A conjecture of Amitsur states that two Severi-Brauer varieties are birationally isomorphic if and only if the underlying algebras are the same degree and generate the same cyclic subgroup of the Brauer group. It is known that generating the same cyclic subgroup is a necessary condition, however it has not yet been shown to be sufficient. In this paper we examine the case where the algebras have a maximal subfield $K/F$ of degree $n$ with Galois closure $E/F$ whose Galois group is of the form $C_n \rtimes H$, where $E^H = K$ and $|H|$ is prime to $n$. For such as we show that the conjecture is…
We classify finite groups that can act by automorphisms and birational automorphisms on non-trivial Severi-Brauer surfaces over fields of characteristic zero.
We study Brauer-Severi surface bundles over smooth projective varieties via root stacks, with a view towards applications to failure of stable rationality.
We classify products of symmetric powers of a Severi-Brauer variety, up-to stable birational equivalence. The description also includes Grassmannians and moduli spaces of genus 0 stable maps.
In an earlier paper we showed that non-split Brauer--Severi curves do not admit full strong exceptional collections. In the present note we extend this observation and prove that there cannot exist full exceptional collections on non-split Brauer--Severi varieties of dimension $\leq 3$.
In a talk at the Banff International Research Station in 2015 Asher Auel asked questions about genus one curves in Severi-Brauer varieties $SB(A)$. More specifically he asked about the smooth cubic curves in Severi-Brauer surfaces, that is in $SB(D)$ where $D/F$ is a degree three division algebra. Even more specifically, he asked about the Jacobian, $E$, of these curves. In this paper we give a version of an answer to both these questions, describing the surprising connection between these curves and properties of the algebra $A$. Let $F$ contain $ρ$, a primitive third root of one. Since $D/F$…
We prove the existence of Ulrich bundles on any Brauer--Severi variety. In some cases, the minimal possible rank of the obtained Ulrich bundles equals the period of the Brauer--Severi variety. Moreover, we find a formula for the rank of an Ulrich bundle involving the period of the considered Brauer--Severi variety $X$, at least if $\mathrm{dim}(X)=p-1$ for an odd prime $p$. This formula implies that the rank of any Ulrich bundle on such a Brauer--Severi variety $X$ must be a multiple of the period.
We study twisted forms of Schubert cells in generalized Severi-Brauer varieties, and show that the codimension $2$ Chow groups of these varieties are torsion free in certain cases, using the topological filtration on their K-theory
Recently, Novaković conjectured that non-split Brauer-Severi varieties do not admit full strong exceptional collections. In this short note, we explain how a stronger version of this conjecture follows easily from known results on noncommutative motives.
We classify morphisms from proper varieties to Brauer-Severi varieties, which generalizes the classical correspondence between morphisms to projective space and globally generated invertible sheaves. As an application, we study del Pezzo surfaces of large degree with a view towards Brauer-Severi varieties, and recover classical results on rational points, the Hasse principle, and weak approximation.
We study homotopy rational points of Brauer-Severi varieties over fields of characteristic zero. We are particularly interested if a Brauer-Severi variety admitting a homotopy rational point splits. The analogue statement turns out to be true for open subvarieties of twisted hyperplane arrangements. In the complete case, the obstruction turns out to be the pullback of the Chern class of a generator of the Picard group along the homotopy rational point. Moreover, we will show that every Brauer-Severi variety over a $p$-adic field with $p$-primary period admits a homotopy rational point.
We show that a quotient of a non-trivial Severi-Brauer surface $S$ over arbitrary field $\Bbbk$ of characteristic $0$ by a finite group $G \subset \operatorname{Aut}(S)$ is $\Bbbk$-rational, if and only if $|G|$ is divisible by $3$. Otherwise, the quotient is birationally equivalent to $S$.
We prove that a finite group acting by birational automorphisms of a non-trivial Severi-Brauer surface over a field of characteristic zero contains a normal abelian subgroup of index at most 3. Also, we find an explicit bound for orders of such finite groups in the case when the base field contains all roots of 1.
Let X be the variety obtained by the Weil transfer with respect to a quadratic separable field extension of a generalized Severi-Brauer variety. We study (and, in some cases, determine) the canonical dimension, incompressibility, and motivic indecomposability of X. We determine the canonical 2-dimension of X (in the general case).
We give bounds on the order of torsion in the Chow group of zero dimensional cycles for isotropic Grassmannians and Brauer-Severi flag varieties. To do this, we introduce tools to understand the behavior of torsion in Chow groups with coefficients under morphisms of proper varieties
We classify absolutely split vector bundles on proper $k$-schemes. More precise, we prove that the closed points of the Picard scheme are in one-to-one correspondence with indecomposable absolutely split vector bundles. Furthermore, we apply the obtained results to study the geometry of (generalized) Brauer--Severi varieties.
It is well-known that a Severi-Brauer surface has a rational point if and only if it is isomorphic to the projective plane. Given a Severi-Brauer surface, we study the problem to decide whether such an isomorphism to the projective plane, or such a rational point, does exist; and to construct such an isomorphism or such a point in the affirmative case. We give an algorithm using Lie algebra techniques. The algorithm has been implemented in Magma.
Let D be a central division algebra over a field F. We study in this note the rigidity of the motivic decompositions of the Severi-Brauer varieties of D, with respect to the ring of coefficients and to the base field. We first show that if the ring of coefficient is a field, these decompositions only depend on its characteristic. In a second part we show that if D remains division over a field extension E/F, the motivic decompositions of several Severi-Brauer varieties of D remain the same when extending the scalars to E.
Let A and B be two central simple algebras of a prime degree n over a field F generating the same subgroup in the Brauer group. We show that the Chow motive of a Severi-Brauer variety SB(A) is a direct summand of the motive of a generalized Severi-Brauer variety SB_d(B) if and only if [A]=d[B] or [A]=-d[B] in the Brauer group. The proof uses methods of Schubert calculus and combinatorial properties of Young tableaux, e.g., Robinson-Schensted correspondence.
In this paper we show that the derived category of Brauer-Severi curves satisfies the Jordan-Hölder property and cannot have quasi-phantoms, phantoms or universal phantoms. In this way we obtain that quasi-phantoms, phantoms or universal phantoms cannot exist in the derived category of smooth projective curves over a field $k$. Moreover, we show that a $n$-dimensional Brauer-Severi variety is completely characterized by the existence of a full weak exceptional collection consisting of pure vector bundles of length $n+1$, at least in characteristic zero. We conjecture that Brauer-Severi varieti…
We study the homogeneous irreducible Severi-Brauer varieties over an Abelian variety $A$. Such objects were classified by Brion, \cite{Bri}. Here we interpret that result within the context of cubical structures and biextensions for certain $\G_m$-torsors over finite subgroups of $A$. Our results can be seen as an instance of the theory developed by Breen, \cite{Breen:1983}, and Moret-Bailly, \cite{Moret-Bailly}.
A semiorthogonal decomposition for the bounded derived category (the category of perfect complexes in a non smooth case) of coherent sheaves on a Brauer Severi scheme is given. It relies on bounded derived categories (categories of perfect complexes in a non smooth case) of suitably twisted coherent sheaves on the base.
We study Grothedieck groups of triangulated categories using weight structures, weight complexes, and the corresponding pure (co)homological functors. We prove some general statements on $K_0$ of weighted categories and apply it to Voevodsky motives endowed with so-called Chow weight structures. We obtain certain "motivic substitutes" for smooth compactifications of smooth varieties over arbitrary perfect fields; this enables us to make certain unramified cohomology and Euler characteristic calculations that are closely related to results of T. Ekedahl and B. Kahn.
J. Stix proved that a curve of positive genus over $\mathbb{Q}$ which maps to a non-trivial Brauer-Severi variety satisfies the section conjecture. We prove that, if $X$ is a curve of positive genus over a number field $k$ and the Weil restriction $R_{k/\mathbb{Q}}X$ admits a rational map to a non-trivial Brauer-Severi variety, then $X$ satisfies the section conjecture. As a consequence, if $X$ maps to a Brauer-Severi variety $P$ such that the corestriction $\operatorname{cor}_{k/\mathbb{Q}}([P])\in\operatorname{Br}(\mathbb{Q})$ is non-trivial, then $X$ satisfies the section conjecture.
Let p be a positive prime number and X be a Severi-Brauer variety of a central division algebra D of degree p^n, with n>0. We describe all shifts of the motive of X in the complete motivic decomposition of a variety Y, which splits over the function field of X and satisfies the nilpotence principle. In particular, we prove the motivic decomposability of generalized Severi-Brauer varieties X(p^m,D) of right ideals in D of reduced dimension p^m, m=0,1,...,n-1, except the cases p=2, m=1 and m=0 (for any prime p), where motivic indecomposability was proven by Nikita Karpenko.
Motives of Brauer-Severi schemes of Cayley-smooth algebras associated to homogeneous superpotentials are used to compute inductively the motivic Donaldson-Thomas invariants of the corresponding Jacobian algebras. This approach can be used to test the conjectural exponential expressions for these invariants, proposed in arXiv:1510.08116. As an example we confirm the second term of the conjectured expression for the motivic series of the homogenised Weyl algebra.
Given a Cayley-Hamilton smooth order A in a central simple algebra $Σ$, we determine the flat locus of the Brauer-Severi fibration of the smooth order. Moreover, we give a classification of all (reduced) central singularities where the flat locus differs from the Azumaya locus and show that the fibers over the flat, non-Azumaya points near these central singularities can be described as fibered products of graphs of projection maps, thus generalizing an old result of Artin on the fibers of the Brauer-Severi fibration over a ramified point. Finally, we show these fibers are also toric quiver va…
Let $\{P_i\}_{1 \leq i \leq r}$ and $\{Q_i\}_{1 \leq i \leq r}$ be two collections of Brauer Severi surfaces (resp. conics) over a field $k$. We show that the subgroup generated by the $P_i's$ in $Br(k)$ is the same as the subgroup generated by the $Q_i's$ \iff $ΠP_i $ is birational to $ΠQ_i$. Moreover in this case $ΠP_i$ and $ΠQ_i$ represent the same class in $M(k)$, the Grothendieck ring of $k$-varieties. The converse holds if $char(k)=0$. Some of the above implications also hold over a general noetherian base scheme.
Soit K le corps des fractions d'une surface projective et lisse, géométriquement intègre, définie sur un corps fini F. Soit C/K une conique. Parimala et Suresh ont montré que le groupe de cohomologie non ramifiée en degré trois de K(C) à coefficients de torsion est nul. Dans cette note on étend leur résultat aux variétés de Severi-Brauer associées à une algèbre centrale simple dont d'indice l est premier et différent de char F.
Let K be a field. Let A be a central simple algebra over K and let X be the associated Brauer-Severi variety over K. It has recently been asked if there exists a genus 1 curve C over K such that K(C) splits A. In other words, is there a genus one curve C over K with a morphism to X? In this short note, we explicitly construct such a curve in the case where X has dimension at most 4 (equivalently, when A has degree at most 5).
It is well known that the category of quasi-coherent sheaves on a gerbe banded by a diagonalizable group decomposes according to the characters of the group. We establish the corresponding decomposition of the unbounded derived category of complexes of sheaves with quasi-coherent cohomology. This generalizes earlier work by Lieblich for gerbes over schemes whereas our gerbes may live over arbitrary algebraic stacks. By combining this decomposition with the semi-orthogonal decomposition for a projectivized vector bundle, we deduce a semi-orthogonal decomposition of the derived category of a fam…
Let $k$ be a perfect field and let $p$ be a prime number different from the characteristic of $k$. Let $C$ be a smooth, projective and geometrically integral $k$-curve and let $X$ be a Severi-Brauer $C$-scheme of relative dimension $p-1$ . In this paper we show that $CH^{d}(X)_{\rm{tors}}$ contains a subgroup isomorphic to $CH_{0}(X/C)$ for every $d$ in the range $2\leq d\leq p$. We deduce that, if $k$ is a number field, then $CH^{d}(X)$ is finitely generated for every $d$ in the indicated range.
Let G be a semisimple affine algebraic group of inner type over a field F. We write C for the class of all finite direct products of projective G-homogeneous F-varieties. We determine the structure of the Chow motives with coefficients in a finite field of the varieties in C. More precisely, it is known that the motive of any variety in C decomposes (in a unique way) into a sum of indecomposable motives, and we describe the indecomposable summands which appear in the decompositions. In the case where G is the group of automorphisms of a given central simple F-algebra A, for any variety in the …
The Abstract for this revised version is the following: Let k be a number field, let C be a smooth, projective and geometrically integral k-curve and let p:X --> C be a Severi-Brauer k-fibration of squarefree index. Various authors have studied the cokernel of the natural map CH_{0}(X/C)-->\bigoplus_{v}CH_{0}(X_{v}/C_{v}), where CH_{0}(X/C) is the kernel of p_{*}:CH_{0}(X)-->CH_{0}(C). In this paper I obtain an exact sequence which relates the Tate-Shafarevich group of the kernel of the above map to the Tate-Shafarevich group of the Neron-Severi torus of X. I then obtain conditions under which…
We extend an argument of S.Lichtenbaum involving codimension one cycles to higher codimensions and obtain a generalization of the well-known Picard-Brauer exact sequence for a smooth variety X. The resulting exact sequence connects the codimension n Chow group of X with a certain "Brauer-like" group.
We reinterpret the residue map for the Brauer group of a smooth variety using a root stack construction and Weil restriction for algebraic stacks, and apply the result to find a geometric representative of for the residue of a Brauer class associated to a conic bundle, or more generally a Brauer-Severi bundle.
For a smooth proper variety over a $p$-adic field, the Brauer group and abelian fundamental group are related to the higher Chow groups by the Brauer-Manin pairing and the class field theory. We generalize this relation to smooth (possibly non-proper) varieties, using the motivic homology and the tame version of Wiesend's ideal class group. Several examples are discussed.
