We introduce the notion of orbital $L$-functions for the space of binary cubic forms and investigate their analytic properties. We study their functional equations and residue formulas in some detail. Aside from their intrinsic interest, the results from this paper are used to prove the existence of secondary terms in counting functions for cubic fields. This is worked out in a companion paper.

The main problem that is solved in this paper has the following simple formulation (which is not used in its solution). The group $K = \mathrm{O}_p ({\bf C}) \times \mathrm{O}_q ({\bf C})$ acts on the space $M_{p,q}$ of $p\times q$ complex matrices by $(a,b) \cdot x = axb^{-1}$, and so does its identity component $K^0 = \SO_p ({\bf C}) \times \SO_q ({\bf C})$. A $K$-orbit (or $K^0$-orbit) in $M_{p,q}$ is said to be nilpotent if its closure contains the zero matrix. The closure, $\overline{\mathcal{O}}$, of a nilpotent $K$-orbit (resp.\ $K^0$-orbit) ${\mathcal{O}}$ in $M_{p,q}$ is a union of ${\mathcal{O}}$ and some nilpotent $K$-orbits (resp.\ $K^0$-orbits) of smaller dimensions. The description of the closure of nilpotent $K$-orbits has been known for some time, but not so for the nilpotent $K^0$-orbits. A conjecture describing the closure of nilpotent $K^0$-orbits was proposed in \cite{DLS} and verified when $\min(p,q) \le 7$. In this paper we prove the conjecture. The proof is based on a study of two prehomogeneous vector spaces attached to $\mathcal{O}$ and determination of the basic relative invariants of these spaces. The above problem is equivalent to the problem of describing the closure of nilpotent orbits in the real Lie algebra $\mathfrak{so} (p,q)$ under the adjoint action of the identity component of the real orthogonal group $\mathrm{O}(p,q)$.