Schur functors and motives

Abstract

In this article we study the class of Schur-finite motives, that is, motives which are annihilated by a Schur functor. We compare this notion to a similar one due to Kimura. In particular, we show that the motive of any curve is Kimura-finite. This last result has also been obtained by V. Guletskii. We conclude with an example by O'Sullivan of a non Kimura-finite motive which is Schur-finite.