Co-periods and central symmetric cube L-values

Abstract

In this article, we study the co-period integral attached to an automorphic form on $\GL(2)$ and two exceptional theta series on the cubic Kazhdan-Patterson cover of $\GL(2)$. In the local aspect, we show the $\Hom$-space is always of one dimension and conduct the unramified calculations. In the global aspect, we give the Euler decomposition for the co-period integrals of Eisenstein series and propose an Ichino-Ikeda type conjecture relating the co-period integrals of cuspidal forms to the central critical value of symmetric cube $L$-functions. We also deduce from the local multiplicity one result that there exist cuspidal automorphic forms with prescribed local components and non-vanishing central symmetric cube $L$-values.