On distinguished square-integrable representations for Galois pairs and a conjecture of Prasad (Q1795188)

Let \(F\) be a \(p\)-adic field (characteristic 0), \(H\) a connected reductive group over \(F\). Put \(G=R_{E/F}H_E\) where \(E/F\) is a quadratic field extension and \(R_{E/F}\) is restriction of scalars (thus \(G(F)=H(E)\)). Let \(\pi\) denote an irreducible admissible representation of \(G(F)\), and \(\chi\) a continuous character of \(H(F)\), over \(\mathbb{C}\). Let \(\text{Hom}_H(\pi,\chi)\) denote the space of \((H(F),\chi)\)-equivariant linear forms on the space of \(\pi\). Define the multiplicity \(m(\pi,\chi)\) to be \(\text{dim}\text{Hom}_H(\pi,\chi)\). D. Prasad defined a quadratic character \(\omega_{H,E}:H(F)\to\{\pm 1\}\), and a quasi-split group \(H^{\text{op}}\) over \(F\), which is an \(E/F\)-form of the quasi-split inner form of \(H\). A character \(\chi\) is Galois-type if it is in the image of Langlands map \(H^1(W_F,Z(\check{H}))\to\text{Hom}(H(F),\mathbb{C}^\times)\). As \(F\) is \(p\)-adic this map is injective, it is surjective when \(H\) is quasisplit, but not always. The character \(\chi=\omega_{H,E}\) is of Galois type. For \(\chi\) of Galois type on \(H(F)\), Prasad defined a ''Langlands dual group'' \(\mathcal{H}^{\text{op}}_\chi\), an extension of \(W_F\) by \(\check{H}^{\text{op}}\), and its group embedding \(\iota\) in \({}^LG\). When \(\chi=\omega_{H,E}\) we have \(\mathcal{H}^{\text{op}}_\chi={}^LH^{\text{op}}\). Using these notations Prasad's conjecture states, roughly: Let \(\phi:WD_F\to\,{}^LG\) be a discrete \(L\)-parameter, \(\Pi^G(\phi)\subset \text{Irr}(G)\) the corresponding \(L\)-packet, and \(\Pi_\phi=\sum_{\pi\in\Pi^G(\phi)}d(\pi)\pi\) the stable representation associated to \(\phi\). Then \(m(\Pi_\phi),\chi)\) is equal to \(|\text{ker}^1(F;H,G)|^{-1}\sum_{\psi}|Z(\phi)|/|Z(\psi)|\). The two main theorems in this paper confirm some consequences of this conjecture: (1) when \(H\) and \(H'\) are inner forms over \(F\) and \(\Pi\), \(\Pi'\) are stable and square integrable and transfer to each other, and a similar requirement on \(\chi\) and \(\chi'\), then \(m(\Pi,\chi)=m(\Pi',\chi')\); (2) for \(\pi=\text{St}(G)\) the generalized Steinberg representation of \(G(F)\) and \(\chi\) a character of Galois type we have that \(m(\text{St}(G),\chi)\) is zero unless \(\chi=\omega_{H,E}\), when it is one. The proof uses techniques from Arthur and Waldspurger's simple local trace formula.