Maass–Shimura operator

In number theory, specifically the study of modular forms, a Maass–Shimura operator is an operator which maps modular forms to almost holomorphic modular forms.

Definition

The Maass–Shimura operator on (almost holomorphic) modular forms of weight ${\displaystyle k}$  is defined by $${\displaystyle \delta _{k}f(z):={\frac {1}{2\pi i}}\left({\frac {k}{2iy}}+{\frac {\partial }{\partial z}}\right)f(z)}$$  where ${\displaystyle y}$  is the imaginary part of ${\displaystyle z}$ .

One may similarly define Maass–Shimura operators of higher orders, where $${\displaystyle \delta _{k}^{(n)}:=\delta _{k+2n-2}\delta _{k+2n-4}\cdots \delta _{k+2}\delta _{k}={\frac {1}{(2\pi i)^{n}}}\left({\frac {k+2n-2}{2iy}}+{\frac {\partial }{\partial z}}\right)\left({\frac {k+2n-4}{2iy}}+{\frac {\partial }{\partial z}}\right)\cdots \left({\frac {k+2}{2iy}}+{\frac {\partial }{\partial z}}\right)\left({\frac {k}{2iy}}+{\frac {\partial }{\partial z}}\right),}$$  and ${\displaystyle \delta _{k}^{(0)}}$  is taken to be identity.

Properties

Maass–Shimura operators raise the weight of a function's modularity by 2. If ${\displaystyle f}$  is modular of weight ${\displaystyle k}$  with respect to a congruence subgroup ${\displaystyle \varGamma \subseteq \mathrm {SL} _{2}(\mathbb {Z} )}$ , then ${\displaystyle \delta _{k}f}$  is modular with weight ${\displaystyle k+2}$ :^[1] $${\displaystyle (\delta _{k}f)(\gamma z)=(\delta _{k}f(z))(cz+d)^{k+2}\quad {\text{for any }}\gamma ={\begin{pmatrix}a&b\\c&d\end{pmatrix}}\in \varGamma .}$$  However, ${\displaystyle \delta _{k}f}$  is not a modular form due to the introduction of a non-holomorphic part.

Maass–Shimura operators follow a product rule: for almost holomorphic modular forms ${\displaystyle f}$  and ${\displaystyle g}$  with respective weights ${\displaystyle k}$  and ${\displaystyle \ell }$  (from which it is seen that ${\displaystyle fg}$  is modular with weight ${\displaystyle k+\ell }$ ), one has $${\displaystyle \delta _{k+\ell }(fg)=(\delta _{k}f)g+f(\delta _{\ell }g).}$$ 

Using induction, it is seen that the iterated Maass–Shimura operator satisfies the following identity: $${\displaystyle \delta _{k}^{(n)}=\sum _{r=0}^{n}(-1)^{n-r}{\binom {n}{r}}{\frac {(k+r)_{n-r}}{(4\pi y)^{n-r}}}{\frac {1}{(2\pi i)^{r}}}{\frac {\partial ^{r}}{\partial z^{r}}}}$$  where ${\displaystyle (a)_{m}=\Gamma (a+m)/\Gamma (a)}$  is a Pochhammer symbol.^[2]

Lanphier showed a relation between the Maass–Shimura and Rankin–Cohen bracket operators:^[3] $${\displaystyle (\delta _{k}^{(n)}f(z))g(z)=\sum _{j=0}^{n}{\frac {(-1)^{j}{\binom {n}{j}}{\binom {k+n-1}{n-j}}}{{\binom {k+\ell +2j-2}{j}}{\binom {k+\ell +n+j-1}{n-j}}}}\delta _{k+\ell +2j}^{(n-j)}([f,g]_{j}(z))}$$  where ${\displaystyle f}$  is a modular form of weight ${\displaystyle k}$  and ${\displaystyle g}$  is a modular form of weight ${\displaystyle \ell }$ .

References

1. Shimura, Goro (1975). "On some arithmetic properties of modular forms of one and several variables". Annals of Mathematics. 102: 491–515. doi:10.2307/1971041.
2. Zagier, Don (2008). "Elliptic Modular Forms and Their Applications". The 1-2-3 of Modular Forms. Springer.
3. Lanphier, Dominic (2008). "Combinatorics of Maass–Shimura operators". Journal of Number Theory. 128 (8): 2467–2487. doi:10.1016/j.jnt.2007.10.010.