Motives of moduli spaces on K3 surfaces and of special cubic fourfolds

Abstract

For any smooth projective moduli space $M$ of Gieseker stable sheaves on a complex projective K3 surface (or an abelian surface) S, we prove that the Chow motive $\mathfrak{h}(M)$ becomes a direct summand of a motive $\bigoplus \mathfrak{h}(S^{k_i})(n_i)$ with $k_i\leq \dim(M)$. The result implies that finite dimensionality of $\mathfrak{h}(M)$ follows from finite dimensionality of $\mathfrak{h}(S)$. The technique also applies to moduli spaces of twisted sheaves and to moduli spaces of stable objects in ${\rm D}^{\rm b}(S,\alpha)$ for a Brauer class $\alpha\in{\rm Br}(S)$. In a similar vein, we investigate the relation between the Chow motives of a K3 surface $S$ and a cubic fourfold $X$ when there exists an isometry $\widetilde H(S,\alpha,\mathbb{Z}) \simeq \widetilde H({\cal A}_X,\mathbb{Z})$. In this case, we prove that there is an isomorphism of transcendental Chow motives $\mathfrak{t}(S)(1) \simeq \mathfrak{t}(X)$.