Analytic monoids and factorization problems (Q2362263)

The author proposes the general framework of ``analytic monoids'' to study the theory of factorization of \(L\)-functions in the Selberg class. This framework is meant to strike a balance between generality required to consider deep problems, and concreteness to facilitate a rich supply of examples. A slightly restrictive definition of an analytic monoid is as a commutative and cancellative monoid \(S\) that is subset of a free abelian monoid \(\mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P})\) generated by a nonempty set \(\mathcal{P}\), such that {\parindent=0.7cm\begin{itemize}\item[(i)] the class group \(Cl(\mathcal{S}):= \text{q}(\mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P}))/\text{q}(\mathcal{S})\) is finite. Here, \(\text{q}(\mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P}))\) and \(\text{q}(\mathcal{S})\) are the groups of fractions of \(\mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P})\) and \(\mathcal{S}\) respectively. \item[(ii)] There is a map \(\|\cdot \| :\mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P})\to \mathbb{N}\), called a norm map, satisfying \(\|e\|=1\), \(\|a\|\neq 1\) for \(a\in \mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P})\setminus\{e\}\), \(\|a b\| = \|a\| \|b\|\) for all \(a,b\in \mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P})\), and there is \(A>0\) such that \(\#\{a\in \mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P}):\|a\| = n\}\ll n^A\) for every \(n\geq 1\). \item[(iii)] There exists a real number \(\lambda\), called the principal shift of \(\mathcal{S}\), such that for every character \(\chi\) of the class group \(Cl(\mathcal{S})\) the function \(L(s+\lambda,\mathcal{S},\chi)\), where \(L(s,\mathcal{S},\chi) := \sum_{a\in \mathcal{F}(\mathcal{P})} \chi(a) \|a\|^{-s}\), is equal to an \(L\)-function \(F(s,\chi)\) from the Selberg class, up to multiplication by a ``well-behaved'' Dirichlet series \(H(s)\). \item[(iv)] \(F(s,\chi)\) is entire for \(\chi\neq \chi_0\), where \(\chi_0\) is the principal character, whereas \(F(s,\chi_0)\) is not entire. \end{itemize}} The author proves several theorems about analytic monoids. For example, the principal shift \(\lambda\) is nonnegative; moreoever, \(\lambda\) and the \(F(s,\chi)\) are uniquely determined by \(\mathcal{S}\). To illustrate the flexibility of the framework of analytic monoids, several concrete examples are given, as well as an asymptotic expansion for the counting function \(M_{\mathcal{S}}(x) := \#\{b\in M_{\mathcal{S}} : \| b\| \leq x\}\), where \(M_{\mathcal{S}}\) is the set of irreducible elements of \(\mathcal{S}\). In particular, one is able to go beyond the main term in the asymptotic expansion for \(M_{\mathcal{S}}(x)\), obtaining upper and lower bounds for the remainder in this general setting. The author concludes with some open problems on analytic monoids that will be of interest to future researchers, followed by proofs of the theorems.