Functional equations and gamma factors of local zeta functions for the metaplectic cover of SL_2

Abstract

We introduce a local zeta-function for an irreducible admissible supercuspidal representation $\pi$ of the metaplectic double cover of $\SL_2$ over a non-archimedean local field of characteristic zero. We prove a functional equation of the local zeta-functions showing that the gamma factor is given by a Mellin type transform of the Bessel function of $\pi$. We obtain an expression of the gamma factor, which shows its entireness on $\C$. Moreover, we show that, through the local theta-correspondence, the local zeta-function on the covering group is essentially identified with the local zeta-integral for spherical functions on ${\rm PGL}_2\cong {\rm SO}_3$ associated with the prehomogenous vector space of binary symmetric matrices.