Nonvanishing of central $L$-values of Maass forms

Abstract

With the method of moments and the mollification method, we study the central $L$-values of GL(2) Maass forms of weight $0$ and level $1$ and establish a positive-proportional nonvanishing result of such values in the aspect of large spectral parameter in short intervals, which is qualitatively optimal in view of Weyl's law. As an application of this result and a formula of Katok--Sarnak, we give a nonvanishing result on the first Fourier coefficients of Maass forms of weight $\frac{1}{2}$ and level $4$ in the Kohnen plus space.