How often does a cubic hypersurface have a rational point?

Abstract A cubic hypersurface in $$\mathbb {P}^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> defined over $$\mathbb {Q}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> </mml:math> is given by the vanishing locus of a cubic form f in $$n+1$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> variables. It is conjectured that when $$n \ge 4$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≥</mml:mo> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> , such cubic hypersurfaces satisfy the Hasse principle. This is now known to hold on average due to recent work of Browning, Le Boudec, and Sawin. Using this result, we determine the proportion of cubic hypersurfaces in $$\mathbb {P}^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> , ordered by the height of f , with a rational point for $$n \ge 4$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≥</mml:mo> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> explicitly as a product over primes p of rational functions in p . In particular, this proportion is equal to 1 for cubic hypersurfaces in $$\mathbb {P}^n$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> for $$n \ge 9$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≥</mml:mo> <mml:mn>9</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ; for $$100\%$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>100</mml:mn> <mml:mo>%</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> of cubic hypersurfaces, this recovers a celebrated result of Heath-Brown that non-singular cubic forms in at least 10 variables have rational zeros. In the $$n=3$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> case, we give a precise conjecture for the proportion of cubic surfaces in $$\mathbb {P}^3$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>P</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> with a rational point.