On the number of Galois orbits of newforms

Counting the number of Galois orbits of newforms in $S_k(\Gamma_0(N))$ and giving some arithmetic sense to this number is an interesting open problem. The case $N=1$ corresponds to Maeda's conjecture (still an open problem) and the expected number of orbits in this case is 1, for any $k \ge 16$. In this article we give local invariants of Galois orbits of newforms for general $N$ and count their number. Using an existence result of newforms with prescribed local invariants we prove a lower bound for the number of non-CM Galois orbits of newforms for $\Gamma_0(N)$ for large enough weight $k$ (under some technical assumptions on $N$). Numerical evidence suggests that in most cases this lower bound is indeed an equality, thus we leave as a Question the possibility that a generalization of Maeda's conjecture could follow from our work. We finish the paper with some natural generalizations of the problem and show some of the implications that a generalization of Maeda's conjecture has.