Fields of rationality of automorphic representations: the case of unitary groups

Other groups and their modular and automorphic forms (several variables) (11F55) Representation-theoretic methods; automorphic representations over local and global fields (11F70)

Abstract: This paper examines fields of rationality in families of cuspidal automorphic representations of unitary groups. Specifically, for a fixed

A

and a sufficiently large family

m a t h c a l F

, a small proportion of representations

p i i n m a t h c a l F

will satisfy

[m a t h b b Q (p i) : m a t h b b Q] l e q A

. Like earlier work of Shin and Templier, the result depends on a Plancherel equidistribution result for the local components of representations in families. An innovation of our work is an upper bound on the number of discrete series

G L_{n} (L)

representations with small field of rationality, counted with appropriate multiplicity, which in turn depends upon an asymptotic character expansion of Murnaghan and formal degree computations of Aubert and Plymen.

Review text

Consider \(F\) a totally real field and \(E/F\) a totally imaginary quadratic extension. The author studies fields of rationality in families of automorphic representations of the (quasi-split) unitary group \(\mathrm{U}_{E/F}(n)\) in \(n\) variables (\(n \geq 2\)). Recall that the rationality field \(\mathbb Q(\pi)\) of a smooth representation \(\pi:\mathrm{U}_{E/F}(n) \to V\) is defined as the subfield of \(\mathbb C\) fixed by \[ \mathrm{Stab}(\pi)= \{\sigma \in \mathrm{Aut}(\mathbb C):\; ^\sigma \pi \cong \pi \}. \] In terms of a reductive group \(G\) over \(F\) and an automorphic representation \(\pi\), the field of rationality \(\mathbb Q(\pi)\) is defined as the compositum of the fields \(\mathbb Q(\pi_{\mathfrak p})\), over the finite places \(\mathfrak p\) of the field \(F\) \textit{J.-P. Serre} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 10, No. 1, 75--102 (1997; Zbl 0871.11032)] was the first to deal with these problems of rationality in families. He stated the problem first in the classical setting of cusp forms: if we define \(B_k(\Gamma_0(N))\) to be the standard basis of Hecke eigenforms (\(k\) even and \(N\geq 1\)) of weight \(k\) for the congruence subgroup \(\Gamma_0(N)\). Then \(f \in B_k(\Gamma_0(N))\) has the following expansion: \[ f(z) = \sum_{n=1}^\infty a_n q^n, \quad a_0 =1, \quad q= e^{2\pi i z}. \] In this case, the field of rationality is defined to be \(\mathbb Q(f):= \mathbb Q(a_1, a_2, \ldots)\), which is a finite extension of \(\mathbb Q\). Consider \(A\geq 1\) and the set \[ B_k^{A}(\Gamma_0(N)) = \{f \in B_k(\Gamma_0(N)) \mid [\mathbb Q(f): \mathbb Q]\leq A\}. \] Serre [loc. cit.] proved that for any sequence of levels \(\{N_\lambda\}\) and any prime \(\ell\) such that \((N_\lambda, \ell)=1\) and \(N_\lambda \to \infty\) then \[ \lim_{\lambda \to \infty} \frac{B_k^{A}(\Gamma_0(N_\lambda))}{B_k(\Gamma_0(N_\lambda))} = 0. \] This problem was then reformulated first for \(\mathrm{GL}_2\): to each holomorphic Hecke eigenform \(f\) it is possible to associate an automorphic cuspidal representation \(\pi_f\) of \(\mathrm{GL}_2\); the representation \(\pi_f\) has a trivial central character and a nonzero \(\Gamma_0(N)\)-fixed vector. The strong multiplicity one theorem for \(\mathrm{GL}_2\) implies \(\mathbb Q(f)= \mathbb Q(\pi_f)\). \textit{S. W. Shin} and \textit{N. Templier} [Compos. Math. 150, No. 12, 2003--2053 (2014; Zbl 1308.11053)] considered representations of classical groups with level families and proved a general version of this result under two special conditions. The author of the present paper proves a more general theorem in the case of \(\mathrm{U}_{E/F}(n)\) removing one of these conditions. More precisely, he obtains the following result. Theorem. Consider the group \(\mathrm{U}_{E/F}(n)\) with the conditions stated at the beginning of this review. Fix an finite dimensional algebraic \(\mathrm{U}_{E/F}(n)(F_\infty)\)-representation \(\xi\). The highest weight of \(\xi\) is assumed to be regular. Fix also an automorphic character \(\chi\) with conductor \(\mathfrak f\), such that \(\chi_\infty \) is equal to the central character of \(\xi\). With this data, let \(\mathcal F(\xi, \chi, \Gamma(\mathfrak n))\) be the family of automorphic representations \(\pi\) of the unitary group such that \(\pi_\infty\) is cohomological, \(\chi_\pi = \chi\). For the proof of this theorem, the author uses known results on discrete series representations of \(\mathrm{U}(n, F_{\mathfrak p})\). In the case that \(E\) splits at \(\mathfrak p\) it is known that \(\mathrm{U}(n, F_{\mathfrak p})\cong \mathrm{GL}_n(F_{\mathfrak p})\), so the problem is reduced to depth-zero discrete series of \(\mathrm{GL}_n(F_{\mathfrak p})\), which are well understood.

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