Fibration theorems for varieties with the weak Hilbert property

Abstract

The weak Hilbert property (WHP) for varieties over fields of characteristic zero was introduced by Corvaja and Zannier in 2017. There exist integral variants of WHP for arithmetic schemes. We present new fibration theorems for both the WHP and its integral analogue. Our primary fibration result, in a sense dual to the mixed fibration theorems of Javanpeykar and Luger, establishes for a smooth proper morphism $f: Y \to Z$ of smooth connected varieties, that if $Z$ has the strong Hilbert property (HP) and the generic fiber has WHP, then the total space $Y$ also has WHP. As an application, we use this result in combination with previous work by Corvaja, Demeio, Javanpeykar, Lombardo, and Zannier and in combination with recent work of Javanpeykar to show that certain non-constant abelian schemes over HP varieties possess WHP. For integral WHP, we prove a new fibration theorem for proper smooth morphisms with a section, which generalizes earlier product theorems of Javanpeykar and Wittenberg, and of Luger. A key lemma gives information about the structure of covers of $Y$ whose branch locus is not dominant over $Z$.