Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2020
We study special cycles on a Shimura variety of orthogonal type over a totally real field of degree d associated with a quadratic form in $n+2$ variables whose signature is $(n,2)$ at e real places and $(n+2,0)$ at the remaining $d-e$ real places for $1\leq e <d$. Recently, these cycles were constructed by Kudla and Rosu–Yott, and they proved that the generating series of special cycles in the cohomology group is a Hilbert-Siegel modular form of half integral weight. We prove that, assuming the Beilinson–Bloch conjecture on the injectivity of the higher Abel–Jacobi map, the generating series of special cycles of codimension er in the Chow group is a Hilbert–Siegel modular form of genus r and weight $1+n/2$. Our result is a generalization of Kudla’s modularity conjecture, solved by Yuan–Zhang–Zhang unconditionally when $e=1$.