The product of lattice covolume and discrete series formal dimension: p-adic GL(2)

Abstract

Let $F$ be a nonarchimedean local field of characteristic $0$ and residue field of order not divisible by $2$. We show how to calculate the product of the covolume of a torsion-free lattice in $PGL(2,F)$ and the formal dimension of a discrete series representation of $GL(2,F)$. The covolume comes from a theorem of Ihara, and the formal dimensions are contained in results of Corwin, Moy, and Sally. By a theorem going back to Atiyah, and by triviality of the second cohomology group of a free group, the resulting product is the von Neumann dimension of a discrete series representation considered as a representation of a free group factor.