Hilbert and Polya suggested that there might be a natural spectral interpretation of the zeroes of the Riemann Zeta function. While at the time there was little evidence for this, today the evidence is quite convincing. Firstly, there are the “function field” analogues, that is zeta functions of curves over finite fields and their generalizations. For these a spectral interpretation for their zeroes exists in terms of eigenvalues of Frobenius on cohomology. Secondly, the developments, both theoretical and numerical, on the local spacing distributions between the high zeroes of the zeta function and its generalizations give striking evidence for such a spectral connection. Moreover, the low-lying zeroes of various families of zeta functions follow laws for the eigenvalue distributions of members of the classical groups. In this paper we review these developments. In order to present the material fluently, we do not proceed in chronological order of discovery. Also, in concentrating entirely on the subject matter of the title, we are ignoring the standard body of important work that has been done on the zeta function and L-functions.

We provide a compendium of evaluation methods for the Riemann zeta function, presenting formulae ranging from historical attempts to recently found convergent series to curious oddities old and new. We concentrate primarily on practical computational issues, such issues depending on the domain of the argument, the desired speed of computation, and the incidence of what we call "value recycling".

Abstract. Recently Katz and Sarnak introduced the idea of a symmetry group attached to a family of L–functions, and they gave strong evidence that the symmetry group governs many properties of the distribution of zeros of the L–functions. We consider the mean–values of the L–functions and the mollified mean–square of the L–functions and find evidence that these are also governed by the symmetry group. We use recent work of Keating and Snaith to give a complete description of these mean values. We find a connection to the Barnes–Vignéras Γ2–function and to a family of self–similar functions. 1.

Abstract. We present theoretical and numerical evidence for a random matrix theoretical approach to a conjecture about vanishings of quadratic twists of certain L-functions. In this paper we 1 present some evidence that methods from random matrix theory can give insight into the frequency of vanishing for quadratic twists of modular L-functions. The central question is the following: given a holomorphic newform f with integral coefficients and associated L-function Lf(s), for how many fundamental discriminants d with |d | ≤ x, does Lf(s, χd), the L-function twisted by the real, primitive, Dirichlet character associated with the discriminant d, vanish at the center of the critical strip to order at least 2? This question is of particular interest in the case that the L-function is associated with an elliptic curve, in light of the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer. This case corresponds to weight k = 2. We will focus on this case for most of the paper, though we do make some remarks about higher weights (see (26) and below). Suppose that E/Q is an elliptic curve with associated L-function (1) LE(s) = for ℜs> 1. Then, as a consequence of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, recently solved by Wiles, Taylor, ([W], [TW]), and Breuil, Conrad, and Diamond, LE is entire and satisfies a functional equation n=1 a ∗ n n s

We calculate the autocorrelation functions (or shifted moments) of the characteristic polynomials of matrices drawn uniformly with respect to Haar measure from the groups U(N ), O(2N) and USp(2N ). In each case the result can be expressed in three equivalent forms: as a determinant sum (and hence in terms of symmetric polynomials), as a combinatorial sum, and as a multiple contour integral. These formulae are analogous to those previously obtained for the Gaussian ensembles of Random Matrix Theory, but in this case are identities for any size of matrix, rather than large-matrix asymptotic approximations. They also mirror exactly the autocorrelation formulae conjectured to hold for L-functions in a companion paper. This then provides further evidence in support of the connection between Random Matrix Theory and the theory of L- functions. 1

By looking at the average behavior (n-level density) of the low-lying zeros of certain families of L-functions, we find evidence, as predicted by function field analogs, in favor of a spectral interpretation of the nontrivial zeros in terms of the classical compact groups. 1.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in connections between the statistical properties of number theoretical L-functions and random matrix theory. We review the history of these connections, some of the major achievements, and a number of applications.

We explore the effect of zeros at the central point on nearby zeros of elliptic curve L-functions, especially for one-parameter families of rank r over Q. By the Birch and Swinnerton Dyer Conjecture and Silverman’s Specialization Theorem, for t sufficiently large the L-function of each curve Et in the family has r zeros (called the family zeros) at the central point. We observe experimentally a repulsion of the zeros near the central point, and the repulsion increases with r. There is greater repulsion in the subset of curves of rank r + 2 than in the subset of curves of rank r in a rank r family. For curves with comparable conductors, the behavior of rank 2 curves in a rank 0 one-parameter family over Q is statistically different from that of rank 2 curves from a rank 2 family. Unlike excess rank calculations, the repulsion decreases markedly as the conductors increase, and we conjecture that the r family zeros do not repel in the limit. Finally, the differences between adjacent normalized zeros near the central point are statistically independent of the repulsion, family rank and rank of the curves in the subset. Specifically, the normalized differences are statistically equal for all curves investigated with rank 0, 2 or 4 and comparable conductors from one-parameter families of rank 0 or 2 over Q. 1

The value distribution of derivatives of characteristic polynomials of matrices from SO(N) is calculated at the point 1, the symmetry point on the unit circle of the eigenvalues of these matrices. We consider subsets of matrices from SO(N) that are constrained to have at least n eigenvalues equal to 1, and investigate the first non-zero derivative of the characteristic polynomial at that point. The connection between the values of random matrix characteristic polynomials and values of L-functions in families has been well-established. The motivation for this work is the expectation that through this connection with L-functions derived from families of elliptic curves, and using the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture to relate values of the L-functions to the rank of elliptic curves, random matrix theory will be useful in probing important questions concerning these ranks. 1

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