Vanishing and non-vanishing theta values (Q743706)

For a primitive Dirichlet character \(\chi\) of conductor \(N\) set \(\Theta(\chi)=\sum\limits_{n\in \mathbb{Z}}n^{\varepsilon}\chi(n)e^{-\pi n^{2}/N}\) (where \(\varepsilon=0\) for \(\chi\) even, \(\varepsilon=1\) for \(\chi\) odd), the value of the associated theta series at its point of symmetry under the modular transformation \(\tau\rightarrow -1/\tau\). These numbers are related by \(\Theta(\chi)=W(\chi)\Theta(\bar{\chi})\) to the root number of the \( L\)-series of \(\chi\) and hence can be used to calculate the latter quickly if they do not vanish. The paper describes experiments showing that \(\Theta(\chi)\neq 0\) for all \(\chi\) with \(N\leq 52,100\) (roughly 500 million primitive characters) except for precisely two characters (up to \(\chi\rightarrow\bar{\chi}\)), of conductors 300 and 600. The proof that \(\Theta(\chi) \) vanishes in these two cases uses properties of Ramanujan's modular function of level 5.