Finiteness and infiniteness results for Torelli groups of (hyper-)Kähler manifolds

Abstract The Torelli group $$\mathcal T(X)$$ T ( X ) of a closed smooth manifold X is the subgroup of the mapping class group $$\pi _0(\mathrm {Diff}^+(X))$$ π 0 ( Diff + ( X ) ) consisting of elements which act trivially on the integral cohomology of X . In this note we give counterexamples to Theorem 3.4 by Verbitsky (Duke Math J 162(15):2929–2986, 2013) which states that the Torelli group of simply connected Kähler manifolds of complex dimension $$\ge 3$$ ≥ 3 is finite. This is done by constructing under some mild conditions homomorphisms $$J: \mathcal T(X) \rightarrow H^3(X;\mathbb Q)$$ J : T ( X ) → H 3 ( X ; Q ) and showing that for certain Kähler manifolds this map is non-trivial. We also give a counterexample to Theorem 3.5 (iv) in (Verbitsky in Duke Math J 162(15):2929–2986, 2013) where Verbitsky claims that the Torelli group of hyperkähler manifolds are finite. These examples are detected by the action of diffeomorphsims on $$\pi _4(X)$$ π 4 ( X ) . Finally we confirm the finiteness result for the special case of the hyperkähler manifold $$K^{[2]}$$ K [ 2 ] .