The Integral Moments and Ratios of Quadratic Dirichlet $L$-Functions over Monic Irreducible Polynomials in $\mathbb{F}_{q}[T]$

Abstract

In this paper we extend to the function field setting the heuristics formerly developed by Conrey, Farmer, Keating, Rubinstein and Snaith, for the integral moments of $L$-functions. We also adapt to the function setting the heuristics first developed by Conrey, Farmer and Zirnbauer to the study of mean values of ratios of $L$-functions. Specifically, the focus of this paper is on the family of quadratic Dirichlet $L$-functions $L(s,\chi_{P})$ where the character $\chi$ is defined by the Legendre symbol for polynomials in $\mathbb{F}_{q}[T]$ with $\mathbb{F}_{q}$ a finite field of odd cardinality and the averages are taken over all monic and irreducible polynomials $P$ of a given odd degree. As an application we also compute the formula for the one-level density for the zeros of these $L$-functions.