Stable averages of central values of Rankin-Selberg L-functions: some new variants

As shown by Michel-Ramakrishan (2007) and later generalized by Feigon-Whitehouse (2008), there are "stable" formulas for the average central L-value of the Rankin-Selberg convolutions of some holomorphic forms of fixed even weight and large level against a fixed imaginary quadratic theta series. We obtain exact finite formulas for twisted first moments of Rankin-Selberg L-values in much greater generality and prove analogous "stable" formulas when one considers either arbitrary modular twists of large prime power level or real dihedral twists of odd type associated to a Hecke character of mixed signature.Comment: 25 pages; typos corrected in corollaries to Thm 1.2, substantial details added to Sec 2.2--2.3, minor changes throughou

Equidistribution of cusp forms in the level aspect

Let f traverse a sequence of classical holomorphic newforms of fixed weight and increasing squarefree level q tending to infinity. We prove that the pushforward of the mass of f to the modular curve of level 1 equidistributes with respect to the Poincar\'{e} measure. Our result answers affirmatively the squarefree level case of a conjecture spelled out by Kowalski, Michel and Vanderkam (2002) in the spirit of a conjecture of Rudnick and Sarnak (1994). Our proof follows the strategy of Holowinsky and Soundararajan (2008) who show that newforms of level 1 and large weight have equidistributed mass. The new ingredients required to treat forms of fixed weight and large level are an adaptation of Holowinsky's reduction of the problem to one of bounding shifted sums of Fourier coefficients (which on the surface makes sense only in the large weight limit), an evaluation of the p-adic integral needed to extend Watson's formula to the case of three newforms where the level of one divides but need not equal the common squarefree level of the other two, and some additional technical work in the problematic case that the level has many small prime factors.Comment: 24 pages; slightly expanded, nearly accepted for

Subconvex bounds on GL(3) via degeneration to frequency zero

For a fixed cusp form $\pi$ on $\operatorname{GL}_3(\mathbb{Z})$ and a varying Dirichlet character $\chi$ of prime conductor $q$, we prove that the subconvex bound $$L(\pi \otimes \chi, \tfrac{1}{2}) \ll q^{3/4 - \delta}$$ holds for any $\delta < 1/36$. This improves upon the earlier bounds $\delta < 1/1612$ and $\delta < 1/308$ obtained by Munshi using his $\operatorname{GL}_2$ variant of the $\delta$-method. The method developed here is more direct. We first express $\chi$ as the degenerate zero-frequency contribution of a carefully chosen summation formula \`a la Poisson. After an elementary "amplification" step exploiting the multiplicativity of $\chi$, we then apply a sequence of standard manipulations (reciprocity, Voronoi, Cauchy--Schwarz and the Weil bound) to bound the contributions of the nonzero frequencies and of the dual side of that formula.Comment: 17 pages; to appear in Math. Annalen; minor correction

Bounds for Rankin--Selberg integrals and quantum unique ergodicity for powerful levels

Let f be a classical holomorphic newform of level q and even weight k. We show that the pushforward to the full level modular curve of the mass of f equidistributes as qk -> infinity. This generalizes known results in the case that q is squarefree. We obtain a power savings in the rate of equidistribution as q becomes sufficiently "powerful" (far away from being squarefree), and in particular in the "depth aspect" as q traverses the powers of a fixed prime. We compare the difficulty of such equidistribution problems to that of corresponding subconvexity problems by deriving explicit extensions of Watson's formula to certain triple product integrals involving forms of non-squarefree level. By a theorem of Ichino and a lemma of Michel--Venkatesh, this amounts to a detailed study of Rankin--Selberg integrals int|f|^2 E attached to newforms f of arbitrary level and Eisenstein series E of full level. We find that the local factors of such integrals participate in many amusing analogies with global L-functions. For instance, we observe that the mass equidistribution conjecture with a power savings in the depth aspect is equivalent to the union of a global subconvexity bound and what we call a "local subconvexity bound"; a consequence of our local calculations is what we call a "local Lindelof hypothesis".Comment: 43 pages; various minor corrections (many thanks to the referee) and improvements in clarity and exposition. To appear in JAM