We describe the Galois action on the middle
$\ell $
-adic cohomology of smooth, projective fourfolds
$K_A(v)$
that occur as a fiber of the Albanese morphism on moduli spaces of sheaves on an abelian surface A with Mukai vector v. We show this action is determined by the action on
$H^2_{\mathrm {\acute{e}t}}(A_{\bar {k}},{\mathbb Q}_{\ell }(1))$
and on a subgroup
$G_A(v) \leqslant (A\times \hat {A})[3]$
, which depends on v. This generalizes the analysis carried out by Hassett and Tschinkel over
${\mathbb C}$
[21]. As a consequence, over number fields, we give a condition under which
$K_2(A)$
and
$K_2(\hat {A})$
are not derived equivalent.
The points of
$G_A(v)$
correspond to involutions of
$K_A(v)$
. Over
${\mathbb C}$
, they are known to be symplectic and contained in the kernel of the map
$\operatorname {\mathrm {Aut}}(K_A(v))\to \mathrm {O}(H^2(K_A(v),{\mathbb Z}))$
. We describe this kernel for all varieties
$K_A(v)$
of dimension at least
$4$
.
When
$K_A(v)$
is a fourfold over a field of characteristic 0, the fixed-point loci of the involutions contain K3 surfaces whose cycle classes span a large portion of the middle cohomology. We examine the fixed-point locus on fourfolds
$K_A(0,l,s)$
over
${\mathbb C}$
where A is
$(1,3)$
-polarized, finding the K3 surface to be elliptically fibered under a Lagrangian fibration of
$K_A(0,l,s)$
.