The fourth moment of quadratic Dirichlet $L$-Functions II

Abstract

We prove an asymptotic formula with four main terms for the fourth moment of quadratic Dirichlet $L$-functions unconditionally. Our proof is based on the work of Li , Soundararajan, and Soundararajan-Young. Our proof requires several new ingredients. These include a modified large sieve estimate for quadratic characters where we consider a fourth moment, rather than a second, as well as observing cross cancellations between diagonal and off-diagonal terms, which involves somewhat delicate combinatorial arguments.