K3 surfaces with Picard number one and infinitely many rational points

Abstract

In general, not much is known about the arithmetic of K3 surfaces. Once the geometric Picard number, which is the rank of the Néron–Severi group over an algebraic closure of the base field, is high enough, more structure is known and more can be said. However, until recently not a single explicit K3 surface was known to have geometric Picard number one. We give explicit examples of such surfaces over the rational numbers. This solves an old problem that has been attributed to Mumford. The examples we give also contain infinitely many rational points, thereby answering a question of Swinnerton-Dyer and Poonen.