Automorphic forms with singularities on Grassmannians (Q1127752)

Let \(G(b^+, b^-)\) be the Grassmannian of \(B^+\)-dimensional positive definite subspaces of the inner product space \(\mathbb R^{b^+, b^-}\) of signature \((b^+, b^-)\). This paper concerns the construction of automorphic forms on \(G(b^+, b^-)\) which have singularities along smaller sub-Grassmannians. The main tool used in the paper is the extension of the usual theta correspondence to automorphic forms with singularities developed by \textit{J. Harvey} and \textit{G. Moore} [Nucl. Phys. B 463, 315--368 (1996; Zbl 0912.53056)]. It is used to construct families of holomorphic automorphic forms which can be written as infinite products. This extends the previous results for \(G(2, b^-)\) by the author [\textit{R. E. Borcherds}, Invent. Math. 120, 161--213 (1995; Zbl 0932.11028)], and such automorphic forms provide many new examples of generalized Kac-Moody superalgebras. The paper gives a common generalization of several well-known correspondences, including the Shimura and Maass-Gritsenko correspondences, to modular forms with poles at cusps. It also contains proofs of some congruences satisfied by the theta functions of positive definite lattices and provides a sufficient condition for a Lorentzian lattice to have a reflection group with a fundamental domain of finite volume. Finally, the paper discusses some examples suggesting that these automorphic forms with singularities are related to Donaldson polynomials and to mirror symmetry for \(K3\) surfaces.