Interlacing of zeros of certain weakly holomorphic modular forms for \(\Gamma_0^+(2)\) (Q504852)

In this article, the authors show the interlacing property of zeros of basis elements of weakly holomorphic modular forms for the Fricke group \(\Gamma_0(2)^+\). We say that the zeros of two functions interlace on an arc \(S\) if every zero of one function is contained in an open interval of \(S\) whose endpoints are zeros of the other function, and each interval contains exactly one zero. For an even integer \(k\), the space of weakly holomorphic modular forms for \(\Gamma_0(2)^+\) of weight \(k\) has the canonical basis \(\{f_{k,m}(z)\}_m\) such that the Fourier expansion \(f_{k,m}(z)=q^{-m}+O(q^{\ell_k+1})\), where \(q=e^{2\pi iz}\) and \(\ell_k\) is the integer determined by the property that \(k=8\ell_k+r_k\) with \(r_k\in\{0,4,6,10\}\). For \(k>0\) and \(m\ge \ell_k+8\), the zeros of \(f_{k,m}(z)\) lie on the arc \(S=\{e^{i\theta}/\sqrt{2} \mid \pi/2<\theta<3\pi/4\}\) in the standard fundamental domain of \(\Gamma_0(2)^+\). The authors prove that for large enough \(k>0\) and each fixed \(m\ge \ell_k+8\) (for large enough \(m\ge \ell_k+8\) when \(k\) is fixed, respectively) the zeros of \(f_{k,m}(z)\) interlace with the zeros of \(f_{k+12,m}(z)\) (resp. \(f_{k,m+1}(z)\)) on the arc \(S\). This result is proved by similar arguments in the case \(\text{SL}_2(\mathbb Z)\) by \textit{P. Jenkins} and \textit{K. Pratt} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc., Ser. B 1, 63--77 (2014; Zbl 1341.11017)].