This volume develops methods for proving the non-vanishing of certain L-functions at points in the critical strip. It begins at a very basic level and continues to develop, providing readers with a theoretical foundation that allows them to understand the latest discoveries in the field.

This volume develops methods for proving the non-vanishing of certain L-functions at points in the critical strip. It begins at a very basic level and continues to develop, providing readers with a theoretical foundation that allows them to understand the latest discoveries in the field.

This volume is the proceedings of the conference on Automorphic Representations, L-functions and Applications: Progress and Prospects, held at the Department of Mathematics of The Ohio State University, March 27–30, 2003, in honor of the 60th birthday of Steve Rallis. The theory of automorphic representations, automorphic L-functions and their applications to arithmetic continues to be an area of vigorous and fruitful research. The contributed papers in this volume represent many of the most recent developments and directions, including Rankin–Selberg L-functions (Bump, Ginzburg–Jiang–Rallis, Lapid–Rallis) the relative trace formula (Jacquet, Mao–Rallis) automorphic representations (Gan–Gurevich, Ginzburg–Rallis–Soudry) representation theory of p-adic groups (Baruch, Kudla–Rallis, Mœglin, Cogdell–Piatetski-Shapiro–Shahidi) p-adic methods (Harris–Li–Skinner, Vigneras), and arithmetic applications (Chinta–Friedberg–Hoffstein). The survey articles by Bump, on the Rankin–Selberg method, and by Jacquet, on the relative trace formula, should be particularly useful as an introduction to the key ideas about these important topics. This volume should be of interest both to researchers and students in the area of automorphic representations, as well as to mathematicians in other areas interested in having an overview of current developments in this important field.

Since the pioneering work of Euler, Dirichlet, and Riemann, the analytic properties of L-functions have been used to study the distribution of prime numbers. With the advent of the Langlands Program, L-functions have assumed a greater role in the study of the interplay between Diophantine questions about primes and representation theoretic properties of Galois representations. This book provides a complete introduction to the most significant class of L-functions: the Artin-Hecke L-functions associated to finite-dimensional representations of Weil groups and to automorphic L-functions of principal type on the general linear group. In addition to establishing functional equations, growth estimates, and non-vanishing theorems, a thorough presentation of the explicit formulas of Riemann type in the context of Artin-Hecke and automorphic L-functions is also given. The survey is aimed at mathematicians and graduate students who want to learn about the modern analytic theory of L-functions and their applications in number theory and in the theory of automorphic representations. The requirements for a profitable study of this monograph are a knowledge of basic number theory and the rudiments of abstract harmonic analysis on locally compact abelian groups.

Multiple Dirichlet series are Dirichlet series in several complex variables. A multiple Dirichlet series is said to be perfect if it satisfies a finite group of functional equations and has meromorphic continuation everywhere. The earliest examples came from Mellin transforms of metaplectic Eisenstein series and have been intensively studied over the last twenty years. More recently, many other examples have been discovered and it appears that all the classical theorems on moments of $L$-functions as well as the conjectures (such as those predicted by random matrix theory) can now be obtained via the theory of multiple Dirichlet series. Furthermore, new results, not obtainable by other methods, are just coming to light. This volume offers an account of some of the major research to date and the opportunities for the future. It includes an exposition of the main results in the theory of multiple Dirichlet series, and papers on moments of zeta- and $L$-functions, on new examples of multiple Dirichlet