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Birational geometry of quadrics in characteristic 2

Burt Totaro
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Abstract

A conic bundle or quadric bundle in characteristic 2 can have generic fiber which is nowhere smooth over the function field of the base variety. In that case, the generic fiber is called a quasilinear quadric. We solve some of the main problems of birational geometry for quasilinear quadrics. First, if there is a rational map from one quasilinear quadric to another of the same dimension, and also a map back, then the two quadrics are birational. Next, we determine exactly which quasilinear quadrics are ruled, that is, birational over the base field to the product of some variety with the projective line. Both statements are conjectured for quadrics in any characteristic. The proofs begin by extending Karpenko and Merkurjev's theorem on the essential dimension of quadrics to arbitrary quadrics (smooth or not) in characteristic 2.

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Burt Totaro. 2006-08-03. Birational geometry of quadrics in characteristic 2. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0608098

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