Low-lying zeros of \(L\)-functions with orthogonal symmetry (Q860119)

The authors study the low lying zeros of \(L\)-functions \(L(s;f)\) which is associated to the modular form \(f\) of level \(N\) and weight \(k\). In particular they study the smooth counting function \[ D(f;\varphi) = \sum_{\gamma_f} \varphi\left( \frac{\log R}{2 \pi} \gamma_f\right) \] and its centered moments where \(\gamma_f\) is the imaginary part of the nontrivial zeros of \(L(s;f)\) and \(\varphi\) is an even Schwartz function. Depending on the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH), they show that an explicit condition on the support of the Fourier transform \(\widehat{\varphi}\) of \(\varphi\) implies explicit knowledge of the centered moments of \(D(f,\varphi)\). For example, their first theorem asserts that \[ \text{supp} (\widehat{\varphi}) \subset \left( -\frac{1}{n} \frac{2k-1}{k}, \frac{1}{n} \frac{2k-1}{k} \right) \] implies that the \(n\)th centered moment of \(D(f;\varphi)\), when averaged over all Hecke eigen forms \(f\), converges as \(N \to \infty\) through the prime values to the \(n\)th centered moment of the Gaussian distribution with explicit given mean and variance depending on \(\widehat{\varphi}\). Also, they study the case of extended support \[ \text{supp} (\widehat{\varphi}) \subset \left( -\frac{1}{n-1} , \frac{1}{n-1} \right). \] They show non-Gaussian behavior in this case. The authors present their results with much care. For example, they compare their findings with the expected behavior based on random matrices. The article is well written.