Moments of $L$-functions via the relative trace formula

Abstract: We prove an asymptotic formula for the second moment of the $\mathrm{GL}(n)\times\mathrm{GL}(n+1)$ Rankin--Selberg central $L$-values $L(1/2,\Pi\otimes\pi)$, where $\pi$ is a fixed cuspidal representation of $\mathrm{GL}(n)$ that is tempered and unramified at every place, while $\Pi$ varies over a family of automorphic representations of $\mathrm{PGL}(n+1)$ ordered by (archimedean or non-archimedean) conductor. As another application of our method, we prove the existence of infinitely many cuspidal representations $\Pi$ of $\mathrm{PGL}(n+1)$ such that $L(1/2,\Pi\otimes\pi_1)$ and $L(1/2,\Pi\otimes\pi_2)$ do not vanish simultaneously where $\pi_1$ and $\pi_2$ are cuspidal representations of $\mathrm{GL}(n)$ that are unramified and tempered at every place and have trivial central characters.