A note on mock automorphic forms and the BPS index (Q2049313)

The notion of mock modular forms goes back to Ramanujan's introduction of mock theta functions. Recently, motivated by problems in string theory, mock modular forms have become a subject of importance. The author of paper under review motivated by certain expectations from string theory, considers mock modular forms in the context of automorphic forms on reductive groups. Let $F$ be be a scalar-valued harmonic Maaß form of weight $k\in Z,k\neq 1$. From harmonicity, we see that the Fourier expansion of $F$ has a unique decomposition into $F=F^++F^-$. The holomorphic part $F^+$ is called a mock modular form. The author uses another definition of mock modular form that replaces `holomorphic' with `cohomological', and he shows that this is consistent with the previous (above) in the case of $\mathrm{SL}_2$. The author's approach is based on representation theory. He also review the connection between BPS states and automorphic forms and introduce a definition of $L$-function associated to the partition function of BPS states.