Thin set (Serre)

In mathematics, a thin set in the sense of Serre, named after Jean-Pierre Serre, is a certain kind of subset constructed in algebraic geometry over a given field K, by allowed operations that are in a definite sense 'unlikely'. The two fundamental ones are: solving a polynomial equation that may or may not be the case; solving within K a polynomial that does not always factorise. One is also allowed to take finite unions.

More precisely, let V be an algebraic variety over K (assumptions here are: V is an irreducible set, a quasi-projective variety, and K has characteristic zero). A type I thin set is a subset of V(K) that is not Zariski-dense. That means it lies in an algebraic set that is a finite union of algebraic varieties of dimension lower than d, the dimension of V. A type II thin set is an image of an algebraic morphism (essentially a polynomial mapping) φ, applied to the K-points of some other d-dimensional algebraic variety V′, that maps essentially onto V as a ramified covering with degree e > 1. Saying this more technically, a thin set of type II is any subset of

where V′ satisfies the same assumptions as V and φ is generically surjective from the geometer's point of view. At the level of function fields we therefore have

While a typical point v of V is φ(u) with u in V′, from v lying in K(V) we can conclude typically only that the coordinates of u come from solving a degree e equation over K. The whole object of the theory of thin sets is then to understand that the solubility in question is a rare event. This reformulates in more geometric terms the classical Hilbert irreducibility theorem.

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