Estimating Hecke eigenvalues of Siegel modular forms (Q1196405)

It is one of the fundamental problems of the theory of automorphic forms to study the eigenvalues of the Hecke operators on spaces of cusp forms. Of particular interest for arithmetic applications are estimates for such eigenvalues of Hecke operators \(T(p)\) for large \(p\). In the case of Siegel modular forms there is much less known about this problem than in the case of elliptic modular forms, where Deligne's proof of the Ramanujan-Petersson conjecture for integral weight and the Shimura correspondence for half integral weight gave best possible answers. In the present paper a new approach is used towards this problem for Siegel cusp forms with respect to the full modular group and turns out to give better results than the simple estimate [\textit{W. Kohnen}, Abh. Math. Semin. Univ. Hanb. 57, 33-36 (1986; Zbl 0641.10022) and \textit{R. Weissauer}, Math. Ann. 268, 357-377 (1984; Zbl 0524.10022)] \(|\lambda_ p|\leq p^{nk/2}\) (where \(n\) is the degree and \(k\) the weight of a Hecke eigenform \(f\)) for the eigenvalue \(\lambda_ p\) of \(f\) under \(T(p)\). In fact, as the authors point out, their estimate is for \(n>3\) better than any estimate that one can obtain by estimating the Fourier coefficients of \(f\). The key step for this new approach is the observation that integrability properties of matrix coefficients of \(p\)- adic representations can be used to deduce an estimate for the Hecke eigenvalue \(\lambda_ p\). More precisely, if the automorphic form \(\varphi_ f\) on the adelic symplectic group corresponding to \(f\) generates the irreducible representation \(\pi=\otimes \pi_ p\) and if \(\pi_ p\) has \(L^ r\) matrix coefficients, then \(|\lambda_ p|< 2^ n p^{nk/2- n(n+1)/2r}\). Using results of Howe it is then proved that for any irreducible cuspidal automorphic representation \(\pi\) of \(GSp_ n(\mathbb{A})\) with \(n>1\) the local components have \(L^{6+\varepsilon}\) matrix coefficients, with the 6 replaced by 4 if \(n\) is a power of 2. In the special case \(n=2\) an even better result can be obtained by simply looking at the classification of the unramified unitary representations of \(GSp_ n(\mathbb{Q}_ p)\) due to \textit{F. Rodier} [Bull. Soc. Math. Fr. 116, 15-42 (1988; Zbl 0662.22011)]; this gives \(|\lambda_ p| \leq 4p^{k-1}\). The exponent in this is best possible since it is attained for forms in the Maaß Spezialschar. The authors remark that their method generalizes considerably. In particular the result appears to be true for Hecke groups \(\Gamma_ 0(N)\) and primes \(p\) not dividing \(N\).