Event time:
Thursday, November 6, 2014 - 10:00am to 11:00am
Location:
431 DL
Speaker:
Amanda Knecht
Speaker affiliation:
Villanova University
Event description:
It has been know for more than 100 years that for any smooth cubic surface $X$ there is a one-to-one map between projective three space and $X$ when the surface is defined over an algebraically closed field. This is not true over non-closed fields. In 2002 Kollar proved that over any field there is a finite-to-one map from projective three space to $X$ as long as there is at least one solution to the defining polynomial equation over that field. In this talk we will address the degree of that finite-to-one map for surfaces defined over finite fields.