Abstract. We prove that the bounded derived category of the surface S constructed by Barlow admits a length 11 exceptional sequence consisting of (explicit) line bundles. Moreover, we show that in a small neighbourhood of S in the moduli space of determinantal Barlow surfaces, the generic surface has a semiorthogonal decomposition of its derived category into a length 11 exceptional sequence of line bundles and a category with trivial Grothendieck group and Hochschild homology, called a phantom category. This is done using a deformation argument and the fact that the derived endomorphism algebra of the sequence is constant. Applying Kuznetsov's results on heights of exceptional sequences, we also show that the sequence on S itself is not full and its (left or right) orthogonal complement is also a phantom category.

We construct an exceptional sequence of length 11 on the classical Godeaux surface X which is the Z/5-quotient of the Fermat quintic surface in P^3. This is the maximal possible length of such a sequence on this surface which has Grothendieck group Z^11+Z/5. In particular, the result answers Kuznetsov's Nonvanishing Conjecture, which concerns Hochschild homology of an admissible subcategory, in the negative. The sequence carries a symmetry when interpreted in terms of the root lattice of the simple Lie algebra of type E_8. We also produce explicit nonzero objects in the (right) orthogonal to the exceptional sequence.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure; version 2: apart from small changes, section 10 on the derived endomorphism algebra of the sequence adde

We derive a formula for the unramified Brauer group of a general class of rationally connected fourfolds birational to conic bundles over smooth threefolds. We produce new examples of conic bundles over P 3 where this formula applies and which have nontrivial unramified Brauer group. The construction uses the theory of contact surfaces and, at least implicitly, matrix factorizations and symmetric arithmetic Cohen-Macaulay sheaves, as well as the geometry of special arrangements of rational curves in P 2 . We also prove the existence of universally CH0-trivial resolutions for the general class of conic bundle fourfolds we consider. Using the degeneration method, we thus produce new families of rationally connected fourfolds whose very general member is not stably rational.

We prove that the semiorthogonal decompositions of the derived category of the classical Godeaux surface X do not satisfy the Jordan-Hölder property. More precisely, there are two maximal exceptional sequences in this category, one of length 11, the other of length 9. Assuming the Noetherian property for semiorthogonal decompositions, one can define, following Kuznetsov, the Clemens-Griffiths component CG(D) for each fixed maximal decomposition D. We then show that D b (X) has two different maximal decompositions for which the Clemens-Griffiths components differ. Moreover, we produce examples of rational fourfolds whose derived categories also violate the Jordan-Hölder property.