We prove a 1966 conjecture of Tate concerning the Artin–Tate pairing on the Brauer group of a surface over a finite field, which is the analog of the Cassels–Tate pairing. Tate asked if this pairing is always alternating and we find an affirmative answer, which is somewhat surprising in view of the work of Poonen–Stoll on the Cassels–Tate pairing. Our method is based on studying a connection between the Artin–Tate pairing and (generalizations of) Steenrod operations in étale cohomology. Inspired by an analogy to the algebraic topology of manifolds, we develop tools allowing us to calculate the relevant étale Steenrod operations in terms of characteristic classes.

We consider the problem of counting the number of rational points of bounded height in the zero-loci of Brauer group elements on semi-simple algebraic groups over number fields. We obtain asymptotic formulae for the counting problem for wonderful compactifications using the spectral theory of automorphic forms. Applications include asymptotic formulae for the number of matrices over $\mathbb{Q}$ whose determinant is a sum of two squares. These results provide a positive answer to some cases of a question of Serre concerning such counting problems.

In this article, we present a conjectural formula describing the cokernel of the Albanese map of zero-cycles of smooth projective varieties $X$ over $p$ -adic fields in terms of the Néron–Severi group and provide a proof under additional assumptions on an integral model of $X$ . The proof depends on a non-degeneracy result of Brauer–Manin pairing due to Saito–Sato and on Gabber–de Jong’s comparison result of cohomological and Azumaya–Brauer groups. We will also mention the local–global problem for the Albanese cokernel; the abelian group on the ‘local side’ turns out to be a finite group.

Let $p$ be a prime number and $F$ a field containing a root of unity of order $p$. We relate recent results on vanishing of triple Massey products in the $\bmod-p $ Galois cohomology of $F$, due to Hopkins, Wickelgren, Mináč, and Tân, to classical results in the theory of central simple algebras. We prove a stronger form of the vanishing property for global fields.

We give a separability criterion for the polynomials of the form

$$\begin{equation*} ax^{2n + 2} + (bx^{2m} + c)(d x^{2k} + e). \end{equation*}$$

$$\begin{equation*} z^2 = ax^{2n + 2} + (bx^{2m} + c)(d x^{2k} + e) \end{equation*}$$

We use Godeaux–Serre varieties of finite groups, projective representation theory, the twisted Atiyah–Segal completion theorem, and our previous work on the topological period-index problem to compute the étale index of Brauer classes α ∈ Brét(X) in some specific examples. In particular, these computations show that the étale index of α differs from the period of α in general. As an application, we compute the index of unramified classes in the function fields of high-dimensional Godeaux–Serre varieties in terms of projective representation theory.

We show that transcendental elements of the Brauer group of an algebraic surface can obstruct the Hasse principle. We construct a general $K 3$ surface $X$ of degree $2$ over $ \mathbb{Q} $, together with a 2-torsion Brauer class $\alpha $ that is unramified at every finite prime, but ramifies at real points of $X$. With motivation from Hodge theory, the pair $(X, \alpha )$ is constructed from a double cover of ${ \mathbb{P} }^{2} \times { \mathbb{P} }^{2} $ ramified over a hypersurface of bidegree $(2, 2)$.

The work of Reid, Chinburg–Hamilton–Long–Reid, Prasad–Rapinchuk, and the author with Reid have demonstrated that geodesics or totally geodesic submanifolds can sometimes be used to determine the commensurability class of an arithmetic manifold. The main results of this article show that generalizations of these results to other arithmetic manifolds will require a wide range of data. Specifically, we prove that certain incommensurable arithmetic manifolds arising from the semisimple Lie groups of the form ${{\left( \text{SL(d,}\,\mathbf{R}) \right)}^{r}}\,\times \,{{\left( \text{SL(d,}\,\mathbf{C}) \right)}^{s}}$ have the same commensurability classes of totally geodesic submanifolds coming from a fixed field. This construction is algebraic and shows the failure of determining, in general, a central simple algebra from subalgebras over a fixed field. This, in turn, can be viewed in terms of forms of $\text{S}{{\text{L}}_{d}}$ and the failure of determining the form via certain classes of algebraic subgroups.

Let U be a connected noetherian scheme of finite étale cohomological dimension in which every finite set of points is contained in an affine open subscheme. Suppose that α is a class in H2(Uét,ℂm)tors. For each positive integer m, the K-theory of α-twisted sheaves is used to identify obstructions to α being representable by an Azumaya algebra of rank m2. The étale index of α, denoted eti(α), is the least positive integer such that all the obstructions vanish. Let per(α) be the order of α in H2(Uét,ℂm)tors. Methods from stable homotopy theory give an upper bound on the étale index that depends on the period of α and the étale cohomological dimension of U; this bound is expressed in terms of the exponents of the stable homotopy groups of spheres and the exponents of the stable homotopy groups of B(ℤ/(per(α))). As a corollary, if U is the spectrum of a field of finite cohomological dimension d, then , where [] is the integer part of , whenever per(α) is divided neither by the characteristic of k nor by any primes that are small relative to d.

We study the arithmetic of certain del Pezzo surfaces of degree 2. We produce examples of Brauer-Manin obstruction to the Hasse principle, coming from 2- and 4-torsion elements in the Brauer group.