Quartic del Pezzo surfaces over function fields of curves

Abstract

We classify quartic del Pezzo surface fibrations over the projective line via numerical invariants, giving explicit examples for small values of the invariants. For generic such fibrations, we describe explicitly the geometry of spaces of sections to the fibration, and mappings to the intermediate Jacobian of the total space. We exhibit examples where these are birational, which has applications to arithmetic questions, especially over finite fields.