Local-global principles for homogeneous spaces over some two-dimensional geometric global fields

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we study the obstructions to the local-global principle for homogeneous spaces with connected or abelian stabilizers over finite extensions of the field ℂ ⁢ ( ( x , y ) ) {\mathbb{C}((x,y))} of Laurent series in two variables over the complex numbers and over function fields of curves over ℂ ⁢ ( ( t ) ) {\mathbb{C}((t))} . We give examples that prove that the Brauer–Manin obstruction with respect to the whole Brauer group is not enough to explain the failure of the local-global principle, and we then construct a variant of this obstruction using torsors under quasi-trivial tori which turns out to work. In the end of the article, we compare this new obstruction to the descent obstruction with respect to torsors under tori. For that purpose, we use a result on towers of torsors, that is of independent interest and therefore is proved in a separate appendix.