Galois representations on the cohomology of hyper-Kähler varieties

We show that the André motive of a hyper-Kähler variety X over a field $$K \subset {\mathbb {C}}$$ K ⊂ C with $$b_2(X)>6$$ b 2 ( X ) > 6 is governed by its component in degree 2. More precisely, we prove that if $$X_1$$ X 1 and $$X_2$$ X 2 are deformation equivalent hyper-Kähler varieties with $$b_2(X_i)>6$$ b 2 ( X i ) > 6 and if there exists a Hodge isometry $$f:H^2(X_1,{\mathbb {Q}})\rightarrow H^2(X_2,{\mathbb {Q}})$$ f : H 2 ( X 1 , Q ) → H 2 ( X 2 , Q ) , then the André motives of $$X_1$$ X 1 and $$X_2$$ X 2 are isomorphic after a finite extension of K, up to an additional technical assumption in presence of non-trivial odd cohomology. As a consequence, the Galois representations on the étale cohomology of $$X_1$$ X 1 and $$X_2$$ X 2 are isomorphic as well. We prove a similar result for varieties over a finite field which can be lifted to hyper-Kähler varieties for which the Mumford–Tate conjecture is true.