We ask the question, "how does the infinite q-Pochhammer symbol transform under modular transformations?" and connect the answer to that question to the Stark conjectures. The infinite q-Pochhammer symbol transforms by a generalized factor of automorphy, or modular 1-cocycle, that is analytic on a cut complex plane. This "Shintani-Faddeev modular cocycle" is an SL_2(Z)-parametrized family of functions generalizing Shintani's double sine function and Faddeev's noncompact quantum dilogarithm. We relate real multiplication values of the Shintani-Faddeev modular cocycle to exponentials of certain derivative L-values, conjectured by Stark to be algebraic units generating abelian extensions of real quadratic fields.

Physicists Green, Russo, and Vanhove have discovered solution to differential equations involving automorphic forms appear at the coefficients to the 4-graviton scattering amplitude in type IIB string theory. Specifically, for \Delta the Laplace-Beltrami operator and E_s(g) a Langlands Eisenstein series, solutions f(g) of (\Delta-\lambda) f(g) = E_a(g) E_b(g) for a and b half-integers on certain moduli spaces G(Z)\G(R)/K(R) of real Lie groups appear as coefficients to the analytic expansion of the scattering amplitude. We will briefly discuss different approaches to finding solutions to such equations and focus on a shifted convolution sum of divisor functions which appears as the Fourier modes associated to the homogeneous part of the solution. Initially, it was thought that, when summing over all Fourier modes, the homogeneous solution would vanish but recently we have found an exciting error term. This is joint work with Stephen D. Miller, Danylo Radchenko and Ksenia Fedosova.