On the discrete spectrum of \((G_2, PGSp_6)\) (Q1365864)

The author studies the discrete spectrum for the pair \((G_2, PGSp_6)\) inside the split \(E_7\). In particular, if \(\pi_{\min}\) denotes the minimal representation of split \(E_7\), Jian-Shu Li shows that the restriction of \(\pi_{\min}\) to \(G_2\times PGSp_6\) contains all irreducible representations of the form \(\pi \times \theta (\pi)\), where \(\pi\) lives in one of the three natural families of discrete series representations of \(G_2\). B. Gross has a precise conjectural description of the entire discrete spectrum of the dual pair \((G_2, PGSp_6)\); see Conjecture 1.2 in this paper. Jian-Shu Li's results agree with Gross' predictions. The author considers the see-saw diagram \[ \begin{matrix} G_2 \\ SU(2)_{\text{long}}\end{matrix} \times \begin{matrix} \text{Spin}^*(12) \\ PGSp_6\end{matrix} , \] where \(SU(2)_{\text{long}}\) \((SU(2)_{\text{short}})\) denotes the \(SU(2)\) subgroup of \(G_2\) corresponding to the long (short) compact root. The representations \(\sigma_k\) of \(\text{Spin}^* (12)\) that appear in the restriction of the minimal representation to \(SU(2)_{\text{long}} \times \text{Spin}^*(12)\) are derived functor modules with non-zero cohomology. On the other hand \((SU(2)_{\text{short}} \times PGSp_6)\) is a dual pair in \(\text{Spin}^*{12}\). By using some analytic results (see Lemma 3.1 of the paper) he can show that the restrictions of \(\sigma_k\) to \(SU(2)_{\text{short}} \times PGSp_6\) contain a discrete series and he can describe the corresponding \(PGSp_6\) discrete series. This is a beautiful paper with a very nicely written introduction. The introduction contains a detailed explanation of Gross' conjecture as well as an outline of a general program to study the discrete spectrum for pairs \((G,G')\) in an exceptional group \(S\).