Coefficients of the n-fold theta function and Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series

We establish a link between certain Whittaker coefficients of the generalized metaplectic theta functions, first studied by Kazhdan and Patterson [Kazhdan and Patterson, Metaplectic forms, Inst. Hauteś Etudes Sci. Publ. Math., (59): 35-142, 1984], and the coefficients of stable Weyl group multiple Dirichlet series defined in [Brubaker, Bump, Friedberg,Weyl groupmultiple Dirichlet series. II. The stable case. Invent. Math., 165(2):325-355, 2006]. The generalized theta functions are the residues of Eisenstein series on a metaplectic n-fold cover of the general linear group. For n sufficiently large, we consider different Whittaker coefficients for such a theta function which lie in the orbit of Hecke operators at a given prime p. These are shown to be equal (up to an explicit constant) to the p-power supported coefficients of aWeyl group multiple Dirichlet series (MDS). These MDS coefficients are described in terms of the underlying root system; they have also recently been identified as the values of a p-adic Whittaker function attached to an unramified principal series representation on the metaplectic cover of the general linear group.