The adjoint map of the Serre derivative and special values of shifted Dirichlet series

Abstract: We compute the adjoint of the Serre derivative map with respect to the Petersson scalar product by using existing tools of nearly holomorphic modular forms. The Fourier coefficients of a cusp form of integer weight $k$, constructed using this method, involve special values of certain shifted Dirichlet series associated with a given cusp form $f$ of weight $k+2$. As application, we get an asymptotic bound for the special values of these shifted Dirichlet series and also relate these special values with the Fourier coefficients of $f$. We also give a formula for the Ramanujan tau function in terms of the special values of the shifted Dirichlet series associated to the Ramanujan delta function.