On the universal \(\mathrm{CH}_0\) group of cubic hypersurfaces (Q2628326)

Let \(X\) be a smooth rationally connected projective variety over \(\mathbb{C}\). As is explained in [\textit{A. Auel}, \textit{J.-L. Colliot-Thélène} and \textit{R. Parimala}, ``Universal unramified cohomology of cubic fourfolds containing a plane'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1310.6705}], the Chow group \(\text{CH}_0(X_L)\) is equal to \(\mathbb{Z}\) for any field \(L\) containing \(\mathbb{C}\) if and only if the diagonal point \(\delta_{\mathbb{C}(X)}\) is rationally equivalent over \(\mathbb{C}(X)\) to a constant point \(x_{\mathbb{C}(X)}\) for some point \(x\in X(\mathbb{C})\). When this condition is met, \(X\) is said to have universally trivial \(\text{CH}_0\) group. The equality \(\delta_{\mathbb{C}(X)}=x_{\mathbb{C}(X)}\) is equivalent to the vanishing in \(\text{CH}^n(U\times X)\) of the restriction of \(\Delta_X-X\times x\), where \(U\) is a sufficiently small dense Zariski open subset of \(X\) with \(n=\dim X\). Then one has the equality (*) \(\Delta_X=X\times x + Z\) in \(\text{CH}^n(X\times X)\), where \(Z\) is supported on \(D\times X\) for some proper closed subset \(D\subset X\). Such an equality is called a Chow-theoretic decomposition of the diagonal. The cohomological counterpart of (*) is called a cohomological decomposition of the diagonal. One of the main results in this paper concerns with the case \(X\) is a smooth cubic hypersurface. Assume that \(H^*(X,\mathbb{Z})/H^*(X,\mathbb{Z})_{\mathrm{alg}}\) has no two-torsion. This holds for example if \(\dim X\) is odd or \(\dim X\leq 4\), or \(X\) is very general of any dimension. The author shows that \(X\) admits a Chow-theoretic decomposition of the diagonal if and only if it admits a cohomological decomposition of the diagonal. As for the cohomological decomposition, she investigates the varieties whose non-algebraic cohomology is supported in middle degree. When \(X\) is such a variety, she shows that \(X\) admits a cohomological decomposition of the diagonal if and only if there exist varieties \(Z_i\) of dimension \(n-2\), correspondences \(\Gamma_i\in \text{CH}^{n-1}(Z_i\times X)\), and integers \(n_i\) with the property that for \(\alpha, \beta\in H^n(X,\mathbb{Z})\) the relation \(\sum_in_i\langle\Gamma_i^*\alpha,\Gamma_i^*\beta\rangle_{Z_i}=\langle\alpha,\beta\rangle_X\) holds.