THE DOUBLE COVER OF ODD GENERAL SPIN GROUPS, SMALL REPRESENTATIONS, AND APPLICATIONS

We construct local and global metaplectic double covers of odd general spin groups, using the cover of Matsumoto of spin groups. Following Kazhdan and Patterson, a local exceptional representation is the unique irreducible quotient of a principal series representation, induced from a certain exceptional character. The global exceptional representation is obtained as the multi-residue of an Eisenstein series: it is an automorphic representation, and it decomposes as the restricted tensor product of local exceptional representations. As in the case of the small representation of SO_2n+1 of Bump, Friedberg, and Ginzburg, exceptional representations enjoy the vanishing of a large class of twisted Jacquet modules (locally), or Fourier coefficients (globally). Consequently they are useful in many settings, including lifting problems and Rankin-Selberg integrals. We describe one application, to a calculation of a co-period integral.