The adjoint map of the Serre derivative and special values of shifted Dirichlet series

Abstract

We compute the adjoint of the Serre derivative map with respect to the Petersson scalar product by using existing tools of nearly holomorphic modular forms. The Fourier coefficients of a cusp form of integer weight $k$, constructed using this method, involve special values of certain shifted Dirichlet series associated with a given cusp form $f$ of weight $k+2$. As application, we get an asymptotic bound for the special values of these shifted Dirichlet series and also relate these special values with the Fourier coefficients of $f$. We also give a formula for the Ramanujan tau function in terms of the special values of the shifted Dirichlet series associated to the Ramanujan delta function.