The first cohomology of separably rationally connected varieties (Q470117)

The paper under review gives two proofs that for a smooth projective separably rationally connected variety \(X\) over an algebraically closed field \(H^1(X, \mathcal{O}_X)=0\). Note that in characteristic \(0\), we know all the cohomology groups \(H^i(X, \mathcal{O}_X)\) are zero by symmetry of Hodge numbers and vanishing of \(H^0(X, \Omega_X)\). The first proof uses the result that one can test the triviality of a vector bundle on a separably rationally connected variety by restricting to every rational curve. Since the cohomology group considered corresponds to extensions of \(\mathcal{O}_X\) by \(\mathcal{O}_X\), one easily deduce that any such extension is trivial by the above result and so is the cohomology group. The second proof uses the argument of \textit{N. Nygaard} [Math. 44, 75--86 (1978; Zbl 0427.14014)] in characteristic \(p\).