Density of rational points on del Pezzo surfaces of degree one

Abstract

We state conditions under which the set S(k) of k-rational points on a del Pezzo surface S of degree 1 over an infinite field k of characteristic not equal to 2 or 3 is Zariski dense. For example, it suffices to require that the elliptic fibration S⇢P1 induced by the anticanonical map has a nodal fiber over a k-rational point of P1. It also suffices to require the existence of a point in S(k) that does not lie on six exceptional curves of S and that has order 3 on its fiber of the elliptic fibration. This allows us to show that within a parameter space for del Pezzo surfaces of degree 1 over R, the set of surfaces S defined over Q for which the set S(Q) is Zariski dense, is dense with respect to the real analytic topology. We also include conditions that may be satisfied for every del Pezzo surface S and that can be verified with a finite computation for any del Pezzo surface S that does satisfy them.