Rational equivalence on cubic hypersurfaces of bad reduction (Q958666): Difference between revisions

This article is in two parts, both of which concern the Chow groups of cubic hypersurfaces over local fields. In the first part, the base field is a \(p\)-adic field, or indeed any \(C_2\) field, and the dimension of the hypersurface is large: the main result is the vanishing of the Chow group of classes of zero-cycles of degree zero when the dimension is at least \(10\). In the second part, an explicit example is constructed of a cubic threefold over the field \({\mathbb C}((v,t))\) with non-trivial Chow group of zero-cycles of degree zero. The author comments that, although this particular construction does not give such an example over \({\mathbb Q}_p\), the existence of such an example seems plausible. Section~1 is devoted to proving the following result (Proposition 1.1): Let \(X\) be a cubic hypersurface of dimension at least \(10\) over a \(p\)-adic field \(K\). Then any two points of \(X(K)\) are \(R\)-equivalent: \(X(K)/R = \{*\}\). Given that \(R\)-equivalence of two points implies rational equivalence of the corresponding zero-cycles, this implies that the Chow group \(\text{CH}_0^0(X)\) of zero-cycles of degree zero is also trivial. The only facts used in proving Proposition~1.1 are the following: any quadratic form over \(K\) in at least five variables has a non-trivial zero; and any cubic form over \(K\) in at least ten variables has a non-trivial zero. The result is therefore also valid over any other field satisfying these requirements, and in particular over any \(C_2\) field. The longer Section~2 is concerned with the cubic hypersurface \[ X^3 + Y^3 + v Z^3 + t U^3 + tv V^3 = 0 \] over the field \({\mathbb C}((v,t))\), or \({\mathbb C}((v))((t))\). The aim is to prove Proposition~2.1, stating that the Chow group \(\text{CH}_0^0\) of this threefold is non-trivial. The way this is achieved is through the explicit construction and study of a regular model over \({\mathbb C}((v))[t]\). This model is found by glueing together toric resolutions of the singularities of the given model. A study of the Chow groups of the various components of the special fibre of this model leads to the result.