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Galois Seminar

Friday, March 17, 2017 - 4:15pm

Brett Frankel

Northwestern University

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL 4N30

Note the special tie due to the double header Galois seminar on March 17

We will review the theory of Brauer-Manin obstructions to the Hasse principle, then discuss what is known about the Hasse principle for cubic threefolds with isolated singularities. In particular, Shepherd-Barron classified 9-nodal cubic 3-folds and proved that the only obstruction to the Hasse principle for these 3-folds is the Brauer-Manin obstruction. Building on the work of Shepherd-Barron, we write down an explicit example of a 9-nodal cubic 3-fold violating the Hasse principle. This is work in progress joint with Anastassia Etropolski and Marta Pieropan.