Regularized theta lifts and (1,1)-currents on GSpin Shimura varieties. I

We introduce a regularized theta lift for reductive dual pairs of the form $(Sp_4,O(V))$ with $V$ a quadratic vector space over a totally real number field $F$. The lift takes values in the space of $(1,1)$-currents on the Shimura variety attached to $GSpin(V)$, and we prove that its values are cohomologous to currents given by integration on special divisors against automorphic Green functions. In the second part to this paper, we will show how to evaluate the regularized theta lift on differential forms obtained as usual (non-regularized) theta lifts.