On the global Gross-Prasad conjecture for Yoshida liftings

Abstract

We restrict a Siegel modular cusp form of degree 2 and square free level that is a Yoshida lifting (a lifting from the orthogonal group of a definite quaternion algebra) to the embedded product of two half planes and compute the Petersson product against the product of two elliptic cuspidal Hecke eigenforms. The square of this integral can be explicitly expressed in terms of the central critical value of an L-function attached to the situation. The result is related to a conjecture of Gross and Prasad about restrictions of automorphic representations of special orthogonal groups.