On abelian birational sections

For a smooth and geometrically irreducible variety $X$ over a field $k$, the quotient of the absolute Galois group $G_{k(X)}$ by the commutator subgroup of $G_{\bar k(X)}$ projects onto $G_k$. We investigate the sections of this projection. We show that such sections correspond to ``infinite divisions'' of the elementary obstruction of Colliot-Thélène and Sansuc. If $k$ is a number field and the Tate-Shafarevich group of the Picard variety of $X$ is finite, then such sections exist if and only if the elementary obstruction vanishes. For curves this condition also amounts to the existence of divisors of degree $1$. Finally we show that the vanishing of the elementary obstruction is not preserved by extensions of scalars.