integrating a character of a non-archimedean local field - MathOverflow most recent 30 from http://mathoverflow.net2013-05-21T20:19:38Zhttp://mathoverflow.net/feeds/question/66750http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdfhttp://mathoverflow.net/questions/66750/integrating-a-character-of-a-non-archimedean-local-fieldintegrating a character of a non-archimedean local fieldJustin Campbell2011-06-02T16:42:20Z2011-06-02T16:42:20Z
<p>By way of motivation, this computation comes from a proof in Bump's book <em>Automorphic Forms and Representations</em> where he shows that the Weil index of the reduced norm of a four-dimensional central division algebra is $-1$.</p>
<p>Let $F$ be a non-Archimedean local field and $\psi$ a nontrivial smooth additive character of $F$. Choose a uniformizer $\pi \in \mathcal{O}_F$, write $q$ for the cardinality of the residue field, and $| \cdot |$ for the absolute value on $F$, normalized so that $|\pi| = q^{-1}$. Let $dx$ denote the additive Haar measure on $F$ such that $\mathcal{O}_F$ has measure $1$.</p>
<p>Bump claims that if $\pi^r\mathcal{O}_F$ is the conductor of $\psi$, meaning the largest fractional ideal on which $\psi$ is trivial, then we have
\begin{equation*}
\int_{|x| = q^{-s}} \psi(x) \ dx = \left{
\begin{array}{rl}
q^{-s}(1-q^{-1}) & \text{if } s \geq r, \
-q^{-r} & \text{if } s = r-1, \
0 & \text{if } s < r-1.
\end{array} \right.
\end{equation*}</p>
<p>And here I get lost.</p>