Asymptotic behavior of supercuspidal representations and Sato-Tate equidistribution for families (Q2287944)

Let \(G\) denote a reductive group over a totally real field \(F\). Let \(F_\infty\) denote the product of the completions of \(F\) at infinite places, \(\xi\) an irreducible algebraic representation of \(G(F_\infty)\) with regular highest weight, and \(\Pi_\infty(\xi)\) the \(L\)-packet of square-integrable representations of \(G(F_\infty)\) whose infinitesimal and central characters are dual to those of \(\xi\). This paper investigates several asymptotic problems regarding a family \(\mathcal{F}\) of automorphic representations \(\pi\) in \(L^2(G(F) \backslash G(\mathbb{A}_F))\) such that \(\pi_\infty \in \Pi_\infty(\xi)\), and such that \(\pi_v\) is prescribed for all \(v\) in a finite set \(S\) of finite places of \(F\), and \(\pi_u\) is unramified for all finite places \(u\) outside of another finite set \(S_0\). For example, suppose \(S_0 = S = \{u\}\) is a singleton, and \(\{\sigma_j\}\) is a sequence of supercuspidal representations of \(G(F_u)\) with formal degrees tending to infinity as \(j \rightarrow \infty\). Let \(m(\xi,\sigma_j)\) denote the size of the family determined by \(\xi\) and \(\sigma_j\). Then \(\lim_{j\rightarrow \infty} \frac{m(\xi,\sigma_j)}{\deg(\sigma_j)} = c |\Pi_\infty(\xi)| \dim \xi\), where \(c\) is a positive constant that is related to the Tamagawa number of \(G\). This is in contrast to earlier results that fixed a supercuspidal representation \(\sigma\) and allowed \(\xi\) to vary. Refining this limit multiplicity result, the authors show that the family \(\mathcal{F}\) is equidistributed in the following sense. Choose a place \(v\) outside of \(S_0\). Since all members of \(\mathcal{F}\) are unramified at \(v\), one can consider their Satake parameters, and these are equidistributed with respect to the Plancherel measure. One tool used to obtain this latter result is a new theorem on bounds of orbital integrals of matrix coefficients of a family of supercuspidal representations. Finally, the authors consider similar questions in the situation of a family of representations that are specified to be the Steinberg representation at all places in \(S\), and unramified at all finite places outside \(S \cup S_0\), and where one allows the set \(S\) to vary.