The annihilator of the Lefschetz motive (Q2403205)

Let \(K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_k]\) denote the Grothendieck ring of varieties over a field \(k\) i.e. the free abelian group generated by varieties over \(k\), modulo the relation \([X]=[Y]+[X \setminus Y]\) for a closed subvariety \(Y\) of \(X\). The ring structure is given by the formula \([X][Y]=[X\times Y]\). One can filter this ring such a way that the \(n\)-th graded piece is given by the formal sums of varieties of dimension at most \(n\) i.e. the image of the following map \[ {\psi}_{n}: {\mathbb Z}[\{ X| \dim X\leq n \}] / ([X]=[Y]+[X\setminus Y]) \rightarrow K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_{k}]. \] A natural question to study is to describe the kernel of the map \({\psi}_{n}.\) The second question is to describe the anihilator of the Lefschetz motive \({\mathbb L}= [{\mathbb A}^1]\) or the kernel of the localization map \(K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_{k}]\rightarrow K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_{k}][{\mathcal L}^{-1}].\) The general answers to these questions are unknown. The author studies a spectrum \(K({\mathcal V}_{k})\) with \({\pi}_0(K({\mathcal V}_{k}))=K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_{k}].\) The higher homotopy groups of this spectrum carry some geometric information about the geometry of varieties. The main result of the paper is that classes in \(K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_{k}]\) that are in the kernel of the multiplication by \([{\mathbb A}^1]\) can always be represented as \([X] - [Y]\) where \([X] \neq [Y],\) \(X{\times}{\mathbb A}^{1}\) and \(Y{\times}{\mathbb A}^{1}\) are not piecewise-isomorphic, and the following equality \([X{\times}{\mathbb A}^{1}]= [Y{\times}{\mathbb A}^{1}]\) holds true in \(K_{0}[{\mathcal V}_{k}].\)