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David Loeffler
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Stark's conjecture and p-adic L-functions

Not long back I asked a question about the existence of p-adic L-functions for number fields that are not totally real; and I was told that when the number field concerned has a nontrivial totally real or CM subfield, then there is a construction due to various people including Coates-Sinnott and Katz.

But my favourite number field at the moment is K = $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt[3]{2})$, and sadly K contains no totally real or CM subfield, so for trivial reasons $L(n, \chi) = 0$ for every Groessencharacter $\chi$ of $K$ and every $n \le 0$. So in this case the above constructions just give zero. When I learnt this, I thought "that can't be the whole story, what about higher derivatives at 0"? Asking around, I was told about Stark's conjectures, which apparently predict that the leading term at $s = 0$ of the L-function of any GC of K should be the product of an explicit transcendental regulator and an algebraic number (which, if I've understood this right, should lie in the field $\mathbb{Q}$(values of $\chi$).)

My question is this: assuming Stark's conjecture, can we construct a distribution on the Galois group of the maximal unramified-outside-p abelian extension of K whose evaluation at any locally constant character of this group gives the algebraic part of the leading term at 0 of the L-series of the corresponding Groessencharacter?

David Loeffler
  • 37k
  • 3
  • 89
  • 194