Brauer groups of diagonal quartic surfaces (Q2457347)

The main object of the paper under review is a diagonal quartic surface \(V\) in \({\mathbb P}^3_{\mathbb Q}\). The author's goal is to produce an explicit algorithm for computing the Brauer-Manin obstruction to the Hasse principle for this class of surfaces. More precisely, he shows how one can compute the algebraic part \(\text{Br}_1(V):=\text{ker}[\text{Br}(V)\to \text{Br}(\overline{V})]\) of the Brauer group and, in the case it is nonzero, construct a nontrivial Azumaya algebra on \(V\) and evaluate the corresponding Brauer--Manin obstruction. The general scheme is illustrated by two examples. In the first one \(V\) admits a \(\mathbb Q\)-fibration over the line with generic fibre of genus one, 48 lines of the surface are defined over a ``small'' number field (of degree 32), the Brauer--Manin obstruction turns out to be nonzero. The second example is of ``generic'' type: there is no \(\mathbb Q\)-fibration as in the first example (though there is a useful fibration defined over a quadratic number field), the minimal common field of definition of 48 lines is maximal possible (of degree 256), the Brauer--Manin obstruction turns out to be zero (though \(\text{Br}_1(V)/\text{Br}({\mathbb Q})\neq 0\)), there are local points everywhere, but computer search gives no rational points of small height. Together with more extensive experiments, this gives certain numerical evidence in support of the existence of a diagonal quartic surface which does not satisfy the Hasse principle but the algebraic Brauer-Manin obstruction vanishes.