Counter-examples to a conjecture of Karpenko for spin groups

Abstract

Consider the canonical morphism from the Chow ring of a smooth variety $X$ to the associated graded ring of the topological filtration on the Grothendieck ring of $X$. In general, this morphism is not injective. However, Nikita Karpenko conjectured that these two rings are isomorphic for a generically twisted flag variety $X$ of a semisimple group $G$. The conjecture was first disproved by Nobuaki Yagita for $G=\mathop{\mathrm{Spin}}(2n+1)$ with $n=8, 9$. Later, another counter-example to the conjecture was given by Karpenko and the first author for $n=10$. In this note, we provide an infinite family of counter-examples to Karpenko's conjecture for any $2$-power integer $n$ greater than $4$. This generalizes Yagita's counter-example and its modification due to Karpenko for $n=8$.