Automorphic form

In harmonic analysis and number theory, an automorphic form is a well-behaved function from a topological group G to the complex numbers (or complex vector space) which is invariant under the action of a discrete subgroup ${\displaystyle \Gamma \subset G}$ of the topological group. Automorphic forms are a generalization of the idea of periodic functions in Euclidean space to general topological groups.

Modular forms are automorphic forms defined over the groups SL(2, R) or PSL(2, R) with the discrete subgroup being the modular group, or one of its congruence subgroups; in this sense the theory of automorphic forms is an extension of the theory of modular forms. More generally, one can use the adelic approach as a way of dealing with the whole family of congruence subgroups at once. From this point of view, an automorphic form over the group G(A_F) for an algebraic group G and an algebraic number field F, is a complex-valued function on G(A_F) that is left invariant under G(F) and satisfies certain smoothness and growth conditions.

Poincaré first discovered automorphic forms as generalizations of trigonometric and elliptic functions. Through the Langlands conjectures automorphic forms play an important role in modern number theory.

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