Cones of Noether-Lefschetz divisors and moduli spaces of hyperk\"ahler manifolds

We give a general formula for generators of the NL-cone, the cone of effective linear combinations of irreducible components of Noether-Lefschetz divisors, on an orthogonal modular variety. We then fully describe the NL-cone and its extremal rays in the cases of moduli spaces of polarized K3 surfaces and hyperk\"ahler manifolds of known deformation type for low degree polarizations. Moreover, we exhibit explicit divisors in the boundary of NL-cones for polarizations of arbitrarily large degrees. Additionally, we study the NL-positivity of the canonical class for these modular varieties. As a consequence, we obtain uniruledness results for moduli spaces of primitively polarized hyperk\"ahler manifolds of OG6 and Kumₙ-type. Finally, we show that any family of polarized hyperk\"ahler fourfolds of Kum₂-type with polarization of degree 2 and divisibility 2 over a projective base is isotrivial.