On the structure and slopes of Drinfeld cusp forms

Abstract: We define oldforms and newforms for Drinfeld cusp forms of level $t$ and conjecture that their direct sum is the whole space of cusp forms. Moreover we describe explicitly the matrix $U$ associated to the action of the Atkin operator $\mathbf{U}_t$ on cusp forms of level $t$ and use it to compute tables of slopes of eigenforms. Building on such data, we formulate conjectures on bounds for slopes, on the diagonalizability of $\mathbf{U}_t$ and on various other issues. Via the explicit form of the matrix $U$ we are then able to verify our conjectures in various cases (mainly in small weights).