2017 Theses Doctoral

A Large Sieve Zero Density Estimate for Maass Cusp Forms

Lewis, Paul Dunbar

The large sieve method has been used extensively, beginning with Bombieri in 1965, to provide bounds on the number of zeros of Dirichlet L-functions near the line σ = 1. Using the Kuznetsov trace formula and the work of Deshouillers and Iwaniec on Kloosterman sums, it is possible to derive large sieve inequalities for the Fourier coefficients of Maass cusp forms, which may then similarly be used to study the corresponding Hecke-Maass L-functions. Following an approach developed by Gallagher for Dirichlet L-functions, this thesis shows how the large sieve method may be used to prove a zero density estimate, averaged over the Laplace eigenvalues, for Maass cusp forms of weight zero for the congruence subgroup Γ₀(q) for any positive integer q.