Second moment of the prime geodesic theorem for \(\mathrm{PSL}(2, \mathbb{Z}[i])\) (Q2070953)

The prime geodesic theorem for a Kleinian group \(\Gamma\) acting on the three dimensional upper half-space says that \[ \psi_\Gamma(X):=\sum_{N(P)\le X}\log N(P_0)=\frac{X^2}2+E_\Gamma(X),\quad E_\Gamma(X)\ll_\varepsilon X^{5/3+\varepsilon} \] with \(P\) running through hyperbolic and loxodromic conjugacy classes of \(\Gamma\) of norm at most \(X\), where \(P\) is a power of a primitive conjugacy class \(P_0\). In the case of the arithmetic group \(\Gamma=\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb Z[i])\), the best unconditional bound for \(E_\Gamma(X)\) is \[ E_\Gamma(X)\ll_\varepsilon X^{\eta+\varepsilon},\quad \eta=\frac32+\frac{41}{474}. \] Under the assumption of the Lindelöf hypothesis for quadratic Dirichlet \(L\)-functions over Gaussian integers, this bound is improved to \(\eta=3/2\). The main result of this article is that the exponent \(3/2+\varepsilon\) holds on average unconditionally. This is achieved by the study of the second moment of the error term. Namely, the authors prove that \[ \frac1Y\int_V^{V+Y}|E_\Gamma(X)|^2dX\ll V^{3+\varepsilon}\left(\frac VY\right)^{2/3} \] for \(V\ge Y\gg 1\). This follows from a short interval second moment estimate \[ \frac1Y\int_V^{V+Y}|S(T,X)|^2 dX\ll T^{3+\varepsilon}V^{3/2+\varepsilon} Y^{-1} \] for \(V\ge Y\gg 1\) and \(T\ll V^{1/2-\varepsilon}\), where \[ S(T,X)=\sum_{0<r_j\le T}X^{ir_j} \] with \(\lambda_j=1+r_j^2\) the eigenvalues of the hyperbolic Laplacian.