The first moment of central values of symmetric square $L$-functions in the weight aspect

Abstract

In this note we investigate the behavior at the central point of the symmetric square $L$-functions, the most frequently used $\rm{GL}(3)$ $L$-functions. We establish an asymptotic formula with arbitrary power saving for the first moment of $L(\frac{1}{2},{\rm{sym}}^2f)$ for $f\in\mathcal{H}_k$ as even $k\rightarrow\infty$, where $\mathcal{H}_k$ is an orthogonal basis of weight-$k$ Hecke eigencuspforms for $SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$. The approach taken in this note allows us to extract two secondary main terms from the error term $O(k^{-\frac{1}{2}})$ in previous studies. More interestingly, our result exhibits a connection between the symmetric square $L$-functions and quadratic fields, which is the main theme of Zagier's work "Modular forms whose coefficients involve zeta-functions of quadratic fields" in 1977. Specifically, the secondary main terms in our asymptotic formula involve central values of Dirichlet $L$-functions of characters $\chi_{-4}$ and $\chi_{-3}$ and depend on the values of $k\,({\rm{mod}}\ 4)$ and $k\,({\rm{mod}}\ 6)$, respectively.