On nonary cubic forms. IV. (Q2842804)

In the second paper [J. Reine Angew. Math. 415, 95--165 (1991; Zbl 0719.11017)] of this series, the author established the Hasse principle for non-trivial zeros of cubic forms over the rationals, in 9 or more variables, under the assumption that the singularities of the corresponding projective hypersurface are at most linearly independent isolated ordinary double points. In the present paper, the linear independence condition is removed.NEWLINENEWLINEFor the proof, large parts of the earlier work can be reused. However a new estimate is needed for the sum \(\Sigma_7\) in the previous work, along with one of its relatives. The key new ingredient is an upper bound for the dimension of the set of hyperplanes whose intersection with the cubic hypersurface has a singular locus of dimension 1. This is provided by a result of Gabber, but unfortunately the proof of the latter appears not to have been published. Given this result, the sum \(\Sigma_7\) can be bounded satisfactorily, though a certain amount of work is involved in doing so.