Base change for \(SL_ 2^{\sim}\) (Q1095183)

This paper investigates solvable base change for genuine automorphic representations of the metaplectic group \(SL_ 2^{\sim}\) over local and global fields. The method is to use Waldspurger's correspondence to relate base change for \(SL_ 2^{\sim}\) to the familiar Saito-Shintani- Langlands theory of base change for \(PGL_ 2\). In the global case, there are certain cuspidal representations which ``disappear'' under quadratic base (in the sense that they fail to remain automorphic). These same representations then ``reappear'' under a subsequent base change! The authors analyze this intriguing phenomenon (which never occurs for \(PGL_ 2)\) in terms of what they call ``mock-automorphic'' representations - irreducible admissible representations which are themselves far from being automorphic, but whose images under the product of local theta-correspondences for some dual pair \((SL_ 2,G)\) are true automorphic representations of G(\({\mathbb{A}})\). The theory of metaplectic automorphic forms, which is finally being systematically investigated by many researchers today, will pass beyond its infancy only after it knows how to explain results such as the ones in this paper.