Two types of Witten zeta functions

Abstract

We define two types of Witten’s zeta functions according to Cartan’s classification of compact symmetric spaces. The type II is the original Witten zeta function constructed by means of irreducible representations of the simple compact Lie group U. The type I Witten zeta functions, we introduce here, are related to the irreducible spherical representations of U. They arise in the harmonic analysis on compact symmetric spaces of the form U/K, where K is the maximal subgroup of U. To construct the type I zeta function we calculate the partition functions of 2d YM theory with broken gauge symmetry using the Migdal–Witten approach. We prove that for the rank one symmetric spaces the generating series for the values of the type I functions with integer arguments can be defined in terms of the generating series of the Riemann zeta-function.