Birational classification of pointless del Pezzo surfaces of degree 8

Abstract

Let k be a perfect field. Recently J.-L. Colliot-Thélène showed that two pointless quadric surfaces over k are birationally equivalent if and only if they are isomorphic. We show that this result holds for arbitrary del Pezzo surfaces of degree $8$ with the Picard number $1$, and describe minimal surfaces birationally equivalent to a given pointless del Pezzo surface of degree $8$.

arXiv comment3-rd version. Some results are improved. In particular, the main result holds for arbitrary perfect field k. 19 pages, 1 table