The reciprocity law for the twisted second moment of Dirichlet L-functions

Abstract

We produce a new proof of the reciprocity law for the twisted second moment of Dirichlet L-functions that was recently proved by Conrey. Our method is to analyze certain two-variable sums where the variables satisfy a linear congruence. We show that these sums satisfy an elegant reciprocity formula. In the case that the modulus is prime, these sums are closely related to the twisted second moment, and the reciprocity formula for these sums implies Conrey's reciprocity formula. We also extend the range of uniformity of Conrey's formula.