Archimedean theory and $\epsilon$-factors for the Asai Rankin-Selberg integrals

Abstract

In this paper, we partially complete the local Rankin-Selberg theory of Asai $L$-functions and $\epsilon$-factors as introduced by Flicker and Kable. In particular, we establish the relevant local functional equation at Archimedean places and prove the equality between Rankin-Selberg's and Langlands-Shahidi's $\epsilon$-factors at every place. Our proofs work uniformly for any characteristic zero local field and use as only input the global functional equation and a globalization result for a dense subset of tempered representations that we infer from work of Finis-Lapid-Müller. These results are used in another paper by the author to establish an explicit Plancherel decomposition for ${\mathrm{GL}}_n(F)\backslash {\mathrm{GL}}_n(E)$, $E/F$ a quadratic extension of local fields, with applications to the Ichino-Ikeda and formal degree conjecture for unitary groups.