The Casselman--Shalika method is a way to compute explicit formulas for periods of irreducible unramified representations of $p$-adic groups that are associated to unique models (i.e., multiplicity-free induced representations). We apply this method to the case of the Shalika model of $GL_n$, which is known to distinguish lifts from odd orthogonal groups. In the course of our proof, we further develop a variant of the method, that was introduced by Y. Hironaka, and in effect reduce many such problems to straightforward calculations on the group.

In this paper, we consider the set $\mathcal{S} = a(e^X K e^Y)$ where $a(g)$ is the abelian part in the Cartan decomposition of $g$. This is exactly the support of the measure intervening in the product formula for the spherical functions on symmetric spaces of noncompact type. We give a simple description of that support in the case of $\SL(3,\mathbf{F})$ where $\mathbf{F} = \mathbf{R}$, $\mathbf{C}$ or $\mathbf{H}$. In particular, we show that $\mathcal{S}$ is convex. We also give an application of our result to the description of singular values of a product of two arbitrary matrices with prescribed singular values.