Endoscopy and cohomology of a quasi-split U(4)

Abstract

We prove asymptotic upper bounds for the $L^2$ Betti numbers of the locally symmetric spaces associated to a quasi-split $U(4)$. These manifolds are 8-dimensional, and we prove bounds in degrees 2 and 3, with the behaviour in the other degrees being well understood. In degree 3, we conjecture that these bounds are sharp. Our main tool is the endoscopic classification of automorphic representations of U(N) by Mok.