On recursive properties of certain \(p\)-adic Whittaker functions (Q415252)

This paper establishes certain recursive properties of \(p\)-adic Whittaker functions which can be used to compute them explicitly in arbitrary dimensions. This is relevant for the Kudla program, a general framework which predicts close relations between heights of special cycles on certain Shimura varieties and special derivatives of Fourier coefficients of Eisenstein series. The main technical result deals with \(p\)-adic (or real, i.e.~archimedean) representation densities for three quadratic spaces \(L\), \(M\), \(N\), and establishes a natural compatibility between representation densities \(I(L, M)\), \(I(L, N)\), and the representation densities for certain subspaces of \(M\) and \(N\). This allows the author to recover a classical recursive property due to Kitaoka, as well as to prove a form of the desired orbit equation for representation densities. By interpolation, the author goes on to show that the corresponding facts also hold true for \(p\)-adic Whittaker functions. In the final sections, the application to Kudla's program is discussed for several Shimura varieties with references to the author's thesis, cf. [\textit{F. Hörmann}, The arithmetic and geometric volume of Shimura varieties of orthogonal type, (2011), \url{arXiv:1105.5357}], and a specific example is considered.