Representations and quasi-characters of level \(0\); endoscopy (Q1996825)

The paper under review studies the endoscopic transfer of depth-0 representations of \(p\)-adic reductive groups, and the distribution characters of such representations. Let \(G\) be a \(p\)-adic local field of characteristic zero, and let \(G\) be a connected reductive group over \(G\). Let \(p^{0, G}: \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)] \to \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)^0]\) be the Bernstein projector to the subspace spanned by irreducible representations of \(G\) of depth 0. Assume that \(G\) is quasi-split. As a consequence of \textit{J. Arthur} [Sel. Math., New Ser. 2, No. 4, 501--579 (1996; Zbl 0923.11081)], there is a natural projection \( p^{\mathrm{st}}: \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)] \to \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)]^{\mathrm{st}} \) to the subspace of virtual representations \(\pi\in \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)]\) whose distribution character \(\Theta_\pi\) is stable. The first result of the paper is that under the hypothesis that \[ \mathrm{(Hyp)}(G): p> (2+\mathrm{val}_F(p))N, \] with \(N\geq 1\) such that \(G\) embeds into \(\mathrm{GL}(N)\), it holds that \[ p^{\mathrm{st}}\circ p^{0,G} = p^{0, G}\circ p^{\mathrm{st}}. \] Let \(G'\) be an endoscopic group of \(G\). Following \textit{loc. cit.}, there is a spectral transfer homomorphism \[ \mathrm{ transfert}: \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G')]^{\mathrm{st}} \to \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)]. \] The second main result of the paper is the following. Assume that the above hypothesis (Hyp)\((G)\) holds for all endoscopic groups of \(G\) and all auxiliary groups (see Section 7.4 for the precise description). Then it holds that \[ p^{0,G}\circ\mathrm{transfert} = \mathrm{transfert}\circ p^{0,G'}. \] The method used in the proof is a characterization of depth-0 representations by local character expansions. This is the third main result: assuming that the hypothesis (Hyp)\((G)\) holds and that \(\pi\in \mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)]\), then \(\pi\in\mathbb{C}[\mathrm{Irr}(G)^0]\) if and only if \(\Theta_\pi\) is a quasi-character of depth-0. Let us briefly explain the notion of depth-0 quasi-characters. A quasi-character on \(G(F)\) is an invariant distribution \(D\) represented by a locally integrable conjugation invariant function \(\theta_D\) on \(G(F)\) that satisfies the following property: for \(x\in G(F)\) semisimple, there is a neighborhood \(\mathfrak{V}\) of \(0\) in \(\mathfrak{g}_x(F)\), the Lie algebra of the connected centralizer of \(x\) in \(G\), such that \(\theta_D\) admits an expansion of the form \[ \theta_D(x\exp(Y)) = \sum_{\mathcal{O}\in \mathrm{Nil}(\mathfrak{g}_x)}c_{D, \mathcal{O}}\widehat{j}(\mathcal{O}, Y),\quad Y\in \mathfrak{V}, \] where \(c_{D, \mathcal{O}}\in\mathbb{C}\) and \(\widehat{j}(\mathcal{O},\cdot)\) is the Fourier transform of the characteristic function of the nilpotent orbit \(\mathcal{O}\) in \(\mathfrak{g}_x\). Then \(D\) is of depth-0 if the above expansion holds for all \(p'\)-element \(x\) and all topologically nilpotent elements \(Y\) in \(\mathfrak{g}_x\). The ``only if'' direction of the above characterization was known due to [\textit{S. DeBacker}, Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 35, No. 3, 391--422 (2002; Zbl 0999.22013); \textit{J.-L. Kim} and \textit{F. Murnaghan}, Am. J. Math. 125, No. 6, 1199--1234 (2003; Zbl 1037.22035)]. The author proves this characterization based on his earlier calculation of the distribution character \(\Theta_\pi\) for a depth-0 representation \(\pi\) in [\textit{J.-L. Waldspurger}, Ann. Fac. Sci. Toulouse, Math. (6) 27, No. 5, 925--984 (2018; Zbl 1458.22005)].