Period integrals in noncompact quotients of SU(p,1) (Q1068880)

Following Shintani's construction of modular forms with period integrals as Fourier coefficients this paper sheds some new light on and extends the results in the previous papers of the authors [Math. Ann. 258, 289- 318 (1982; Zbl 0466.58004); Invent. Math. 71, 467-499 (1983; Zbl 0506.10024)]. There the authors constructed a lifting of Hermitian modular forms of degree r to codimension r cycles in compact arithmetic quotients \(\Gamma\) \(\setminus D\) of the complex unit p-ball D. In their new approach by calculating directly the pairing of the theta function and a primitive harmonic cusp form on \(\Gamma\) \(\setminus D\) the lifting above is extended to non-compact quotients, and the former restriction \(r\leq (p+2)/4\) could be removed such that the lifting exists now for \(r\leq p/2\). The authors give some nice geometric interpretations and draw some consequences for the cohomology of arithmetic groups.