Rational equivalence on cubic hypersurfaces of bad reduction (Q958666)

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.