On smoothing singularities of elliptic orbital integrals on GL(n) and Beyond Endoscopy

Recent work of Altu\u{g} continues the preliminary analysis of Langlands' Beyond Endoscopy proposal for $GL(2)$ by removing the contribution of the trivial representation to the trace formula using a Poisson summation formula. We show that Altu\u{g}'s method of smoothing real elliptic orbital integrals by an approximate functional equation extends to $GL(n)$. We also discuss the case of an arbitrary reductive group, and remaining obstructions for applying Poisson summation.