Variétés unirationelles non rationelles: Au-delà de l'exemple d'Artin et Mumford. (Non rational unirational varieties: Beyond the Artin-Mumford example) (Q1262371)

The authors construct an example of a non-rational but unirational variety with zero Brauer cohomological invariant but non-zero higher cohomological invariants of Grothendieck. This is a first application of Grothendieck invariants to the problem of rationality. The example resembles the famous example of Artin-Mumford of a non-rational unirational 3-fold. It is a birationally quadric bundle over \({\mathbb{P}}^ 3\), whose general fibre is isomorphic to the quadric \(X^ 2_ 0+f_ 1X^ 2_ 1+f_ 2X^ 2_ 2+f_ 1f_ 2X^ 2_ 3+g_ 1g_ 2X^ 2_ 4=0\) with certain conditions on the elements \(f_ 1,f_ 2,g_ 1,g_ 2\) of the field \({\mathbb{C}}(x,y,z)\). Recall that the higher cohomological invariants of Grothendieck of a field of algebraic functions K over a field of constants k are defined as the intersection \(F_ n^{j,i}\) of all kernels of the homomorphisms \(H^ j(K,\mu_ n^{\otimes^ i})\to H^ j(k_ A,\mu_ n^{\otimes^{i-1}})\), where A is a discrete valuation ring of K with the residue field \(k_ A\) containing k. The Brauer invariants are the groups \(F_ n^{2,1}\). In the example, \(F_ 2^{3,3}\neq 0\) but all \(F_ n^{2,1}=0\).