Spectral square means for period integrals of wave functions on real hyperbolic spaces (Q838448)

Given the enigmatic nature of Maaß\ forms the author suggests an approach based on period integrals which may shed some light on these mysterious objects. The main part of the paper under review is rather technical and deals with the \(d\)-dimensional hyperbolic space, but the motivation of this work is probably best understood in the familiar case \(d=2\): Let \(\Gamma\) be a cofinite Fuchsian group acting on the upper half-plane \(\mathbb H\), \(\gamma\) an hyperbolic element of \(\Gamma\) and \(C_\gamma\) the corresponding closed geodesic on the Riemann surface \(\Gamma\setminus\mathbb H\). The author considers the period integrals of the Maaß\ forms for \(\Gamma\) along the geodesic \(C_\gamma\) collectively and studies for \(x>0\) the sum \[ N_\Gamma(\gamma, x)= \sum_{\lambda_n\leq x}\Bigl| \int_{C_\gamma} f_n \,ds\Bigr|^2. \] Here \((\lambda_n)_{n\geq 0}\) is the (non-decreasing) sequence of (nonnegative) eigenvalues of the Laplacian on \(\Gamma\setminus\mathbb H\), and \((f_n)_{n\geq 0}\) is an orthonormal system of (square integrable) Maaß\ forms for \((\lambda_n)_{n\geq 0}\). Then the author's much more general Theorem 22 comes down to the following result: If \(\Gamma\) is a subgroup of finite index in \(\text{PSL}_2(\mathbb Z)\), then for any primitive hyperbolic element \(\gamma\in\Gamma\) we have \[ N_\Gamma(\gamma, x)+ M_\Gamma(\gamma, x)\sim{\log N(\gamma)\over\pi}\,x^{1/2} \] for \(x\to\infty\). Here, \(\log N(\gamma)\) is the length of \(C_\gamma\) and \(M_\Gamma(\gamma, x)\) is an interference term accounting for the contribution of the periods of the Eisenstein series (analogous to the contribution of the scattering matrix in the familiar version of Weyl's law). If one could show that \(M_\Gamma(\gamma, x)\) is asymptotically of lower order than \(x^{1/2}\), then the result quoted above would entail the existence of infinitely many Maaß\ forms with non-vanishing periods along \(C_\gamma\)\dots It follows from work of Hecke that in order to estimate \(M_\Gamma(\gamma, x)\) it is crucial to obtain a subconvexity bound of certain \(L\)-functions on the critical line. In this work the author considers period integrals of wave functions \(F\) on an arithmetic quotient \(\Gamma\setminus\mathbb H^d\) of \(d\)-dimensional hyperbolic space along another wave function \(\phi\) on an arithmetic quotient \(\Gamma_0\setminus\mathbb H^{d-1}\) embedded in \(\Gamma\setminus\mathbb H^d\) with codimension one. The main theorem is proved here only under an additional compactness assumption. The general case will be settled in Part II of this work.