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 $\Gamma \subset G$ of the topological group. Automorphic forms are a generalization of the idea of periodic functions in Euclidean space to general topological groups.

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 $\Gamma \subset G$ of the topological group. Automorphic forms are a generalization of the idea of periodic functions in Euclidean space to general topological groups.