On recursive properties of certain p-adic Whittaker functions

Abstract

We investigate recursive properties of certain p-adic Whittaker functions (of which representation densities of quadratic forms are special values). The proven relations can be used to compute them explicitly in arbitrary dimensions, provided that enough information about the orbits under the orthogonal group acting on the representations is available. These relations have implications for the first and second special derivatives of the Euler product over all p of these Whittaker functions. These Euler products appear as the main part of the Fourier coefficients of Eisenstein series associated with the Weil representation. In case of signature (m-2,2), we interpret these implications in terms of the theory of Borcherds' products on orthogonal Shimura varieties. This gives some evidence for Kudla's conjectures in higher dimensions.