ASYMPTOTIC FORMULAS FOR CLASS NUMBER SUMS OF INDEFINITE BINARY QUADRATIC FORMS ON ARITHMETIC PROGRESSIONS

Abstract

It is known that there is a one-to-one correspondence between equivalence classes of primitive indefinite binary quadratic forms and primitive hyperbolic conjugacy classes of the modular group. Due to such a correspondence, Sarnak obtained the asymptotic formula for the class number sum in order of the fundamental unit by using the prime geodesic theorem for the modular group. In the present paper, we propose asymptotic formulas of the class number sums over discriminants on arithmetic progressions. Since there are relations between the arithmetic properties of the discriminants and the conjugacy classes in the finite groups given by the modular group and its congruence subgroups, we can get the desired asymptotic formulas by arranging the Tchebotarev-type prime geodesic theorem. While such asymptotic formulas were already given by Raulf, the approaches are quite different, the expressions of the leading terms of our asymptotic formulas are simpler and the estimates of the remainder terms are sharper.