Special cubic fourfolds, K3 surfaces and the Franchetta property

Abstract: O'Grady conjectured that the Chow group of 0-cycles of the generic fiber of the universal family over the moduli space of polarized K3 surfaces of genus g is cyclic. This so-called generalized Franchetta conjecture has been solved only for low genera where there is a Mukai model (precisely, when g<11 and g=12, 13, 16, 18, 20), by the work of Pavic--Shen--Yin. In this paper, as a non-commutative analog, we study the Franchetta property for families of special cubic fourfolds (in the sense of Hassett) and relate it to O'Grady's conjecture for K3 surfaces. Most notably, by using special cubic fourfolds of discriminant 26, we prove O'Grady's generalized Franchetta conjecture for g=14, providing the first evidence beyond Mukai models.