Galois module structures and the Hasse principle in twist families via the distribution of Selmer groups

Abstract

We address several seemingly disparate problems in arithmetic geometry: the statistical behaviour of the Galois module structure of Mordell--Weil groups of a fixed elliptic curve over varying quadratic extensions; the frequency of failure of the Hasse principle in quadratic twist families of genus $1$ hyperelliptic curves; and the Hasse principle for Kummer varieties. The common technical ingredient for all of these is a result on the distribution of $2$-Selmer ranks in certain sparse families of quadratic twists of a given abelian variety.