Shtukas and the Taylor expansion of $L$-functions (II)

Abstract

For arithmetic applications, we extend and refine our results in \cite{YZ} to allow ramifications in a minimal way. Starting with a possibly ramified quadratic extension $F'/F$ of function fields over a finite field in odd characteristic, and a finite set of places $\Sigma$ of $F$ that are unramified in $F'$, we define a collection of Heegner--Drinfeld cycles on the moduli stack of $\mathrm{PGL}_{2}$-Shtukas with $r$-modifications and Iwahori level structures at places of $\Sigma$. For a cuspidal automorphic representation $\pi$ of $\mathrm{PGL}_{2}(\mathbb{A}_{F})$ with square-free level $\Sigma$, and $r\in\mathbb{Z}_{\ge0}$ whose parity matches the root number of $\pi_{F'}$, we prove a series of identities between: (1) The product of the central derivatives of the normalized $L$-functions $\mathcal{L}^{(a)}(\pi, 1/2)\mathcal{L}^{(r-a)}(\pi\otimes\eta, 1/2)$, where $\eta$ is the quadratic id\`ele class character attached to $F'/F$, and $0\le a\le r$; (2) The self intersection number of a linear combination of Heegner--Drinfeld cycles. In particular, we can now obtain global $L$-functions with odd vanishing orders. These identities are function-field analogues of the formulas of Waldspurger and Gross--Zagier for higher derivatives of $L$-functions.