Rankin Triple Products and Quantum Chaos

Thomas C. Watson

Published 2008-10-02, updated 2008-10-22Version 3

We prove explicit Harris-Kudla type formulas for triples of Maass forms, holomorphic forms, and combinations thereof, on the hyperbolic plane modulo congruence groups and co-compact lattices arising from Eichler orders of quaternion algebras. These formulas relate the central value of the corresponding Rankin triple product L-function to a squared trilinear period integral. Assuming subconvexity estimates for these L-values, we prove Quantum Unique Ergodicity on such quotients; the relevant Lindelof hypotheses imply a quantitative form of QUE, with an optimal rate. In connection with the Berry/Hejhal Random Wave conjecture, we prove decay of third moments in the high energy limit, making use of a subconvexity result of Iwaniec/Ivic/Jutila and Kim-Shahidi's result on cuspidality of the symmetric cube.