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We give an elementary proof of weighted resolvent estimates for the semiclassical Schrödinger operator $-h^2 \Delta + V(x) - E$ in dimension $n \neq 2$, where $h, \, E> 0$. The potential is real valued and $V$ and $\partial _r V$ exhibit long-range decay at infinity and may grow like a sufficiently small negative power of $r$ as $r \to 0$. The resolvent norm grows exponentially in $h^{-1}$, but near infinity it grows linearly. When $V$ is compactly supported, we obtain linear growth if the resolvent is multiplied by weights supported outside a ball of radius $CE^{-1/2}$ for some $C> 0$. This $E$-dependence is sharp and answers a question of Datchev and Jin.

We consider Keldysh-type operators, $ P = x_1 D_{x_1}^2 + a (x) D_{x_1} + Q (x, D_{x'} ) $, $ x = ( x_1, x') $ with analytic coefficients, and with $ Q ( x, D_{x'} ) $ second order, principally real and elliptic in $ D_{x'} $ for $ x $ near zero. We show that if $ P u =f $, $ u \in C^\infty $, and $ f $ is analytic in a neighbourhood of $ 0 $ then $ u $ is analytic in a neighbourhood of $ 0 $. This is a consequence of a microlocal result valid for operators of any order with Lagrangian radial sets. Our result proves a generalized version of a conjecture made by the second author and Lebeau and has applications to scattering theory., 24 pages, 1 figure

Let $(M,g)$ be a compact Riemannian manifold and $P_1:=-h^2\Delta_g+V(x)-E_1$ so that $dp_1\neq 0$ on $p_1=0$. We assume that $P_1$ is quantum completely integrable in the sense that there exist functionally independent pseuodifferential operators $P_2,\dots P_n$ with $[P_i,P_j]=0$, $i,j=1,\dots ,n$. We study the pointwise bounds for the joint eigenfunctions, $u_h$ of the system $\{P_i\}_{i=1}^n$ with $P_1u_h=E_1u_h+o(1)$. We first give polynomial improvements over the standard H\"ormander bounds for typical points in $M$. In two and three dimensions, these estimates agree with the Hardy exponent $h^{-\frac{1-n}{4}}$ and in higher dimensions we obtain a gain of $h^{\frac{1}{2}}$ over the H\"ormander bound. In our second main result, under a real-analyticity assumption on the QCI system, we give exponential decay estimates for joint eigenfunctions at points outside the projection of invariant Lagrangian tori; that is at points $x\in M$ in the "microlocally forbidden" region $p_1^{-1}(E_1)\cap \dots \cap p_n^{-1}(E_n)\cap T^*_xM=\emptyset.$ These bounds are sharp locally near the projection of the invariant tori., Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure

We consider solving the exterior Dirichlet problem for the Helmholtz equation with the $h$-version of the boundary element method (BEM) using the standard second-kind combined-field integral equations. We prove a new, sharp bound on how the number of GMRES iterations must grow with the wavenumber $k$ to have the error in the iterative solution bounded independently of $k$ as $k\rightarrow \infty$ when the boundary of the obstacle is analytic and has strictly positive curvature. To our knowledge, this result is the first-ever sharp bound on how the number of GMRES iterations depends on the wavenumber for an integral equation used to solve a scattering problem. We also prove new bounds on how $h$ must decrease with $k$ to maintain $k$-independent quasi-optimality of the Galerkin solutions as $k \rightarrow \infty$ when the obstacle is nontrapping., Version 3 of this submission has been split into Version 4 and arXiv:1807.09719

For the Helmholtz equation posed in the exterior of a Dirichlet obstacle, we prove that if there exists a family of quasimodes (as is the case when the exterior of the obstacle has stable trapped rays), then there exist near-zero eigenvalues of the standard variational formulation of the exterior Dirichlet problem (recall that this formulation involves truncating the exterior domain and applying the exterior Dirichlet-to-Neumann map on the truncation boundary). Our motivation for proving this result is that a) the finite-element method for computing approximations to solutions of the Helmholtz equation is based on the standard variational formulation, and b) the location of eigenvalues, and especially near-zero ones, plays a key role in understanding how iterative solvers such as the generalised minimum residual method (GMRES) behave when used to solve linear systems, in particular those arising from the finite-element method. The result proved in this paper is thus the first step towards rigorously understanding how GMRES behaves when applied to discretisations of high-frequency Helmholtz problems under strong trapping (the subject of the companion paper [Marchand, Galkowski, Spence, Spence, 2021]).

We employ separation of variables to prove weighted resolvent estimates for the semiclassical Schr\"odinger operator $-h^2 \Delta + V(|x|) - E$ in dimension $n \ge 2$, where $h, \, E > 0$, and $V: [0, \infty) \to \mathbb{R}$ is $L^\infty$ and compactly supported. The weighted resolvent norm grows no faster than $\exp(Ch^{-1})$, while an exterior weighted norm grows $\sim h^{-1}$. We introduce a new method based on the Mellin transform to handle the two-dimensional case.

This article concerns the asymptotic geometric character of the nodal set of the eigenfunctions of the Steklov eigenvalue problem $$\begin{aligned} -\Delta \phi _{\sigma _j}=0,\quad \hbox { on }\,\,\Omega ,\quad \partial _\nu \phi _{\sigma _j}=\sigma _j \phi _{\sigma _j}\quad \hbox { on }\,\,\partial \Omega \end{aligned}$$-Δϕσj=0,onΩ,∂νϕσj=σjϕσjon∂Ωin two-dimensional domains $$\Omega $$Ω. In particular, this paper presents a dense family $$\mathcal {A}$$A of simply-connected two-dimensional domains with analytic boundaries such that, for each $$\Omega \in \mathcal {A}$$Ω∈A, the nodal set of the eigenfunction $$\phi _{\sigma _j}$$ϕσj “is not dense at scale $$\sigma _j^{-1}$$σj-1”. This result addresses a question put forth under “Open Problem 10” in Girouard and Polterovich (J Spectr Theory 7(2):321–359, 2017). In fact, the results in the present paper establish that, for domains $$\Omega \in \mathcal {A}$$Ω∈A, the nodal sets of the eigenfunctions $$\phi _{\sigma _j}$$ϕσj associated with the eigenvalue $$\sigma _j$$σj have starkly different character than anticipated: they are not dense at any shrinking scale. More precisely, for each $$\Omega \in \mathcal {A}$$Ω∈A there is a value $$r_1>0$$r1>0 such that for each j there is $$x_j\in \Omega $$xj∈Ω such that $$\phi _{\sigma _j}$$ϕσj does not vanish on the ball of radius $$r_1$$r1 around $$x_j$$xj.

Gajic--Warnick have recently proposed a definition of scattering resonances based on Gevrey-2 regularity at infinity and introduced a new class of potentials for which resonances can be defined. We show that standard methods based on complex scaling apply to a slightly larger class of potentials and show existence of resonances in larger angles., 1 figure, 12 pages

We prove a uniform lower bound on Cauchy data on an arbitrary curve on a negatively curved surface using the Dyatlov-Jin(-Nonnenmacher) observability estimate on the global surface. In the process, we prove some further results about defect measures of restrictions of eigenfunctions to a hypersurface.

We study the resolvent for nontrapping obstacles on manifolds with Euclidean ends. It is well known that for such manifolds, the outgoing resolvent satisfies $\|\chi R(k) \chi\|_{L^2\to L^2}\leq C{k}^{-1}$ for ${k}>1$, but the constant $C$ has been little studied. We show that, for high frequencies, the constant is bounded above by $2/\pi$ times the length of the longest generalized bicharacteristic of $|\xi|_g^2-1$ remaining in the support of $\chi.$ We show that this estimate is optimal in the case of manifolds without boundary. We then explore the implications of this result for the numerical analysis of the Helmholtz equation., Comment: 40 pages

We study the relationship between L∞ growth of eigenfunctions and their L^{2} concentration as measured by defect measures. In particular, we show that scarring in the sense of concentration of defect measure on certain submanifolds is incompatible with maximal L∞ growth. In addition, we show that a defect measure which is too diffuse, such as the Liouville measure, is also incompatible with maximal eigenfunction growth.

Let $(M,g)$ be a smooth, compact Riemannian manifold and $\{\phi_h\}$ an $L^2$-normalized sequence of Laplace eigenfunctions, $-h^2\Delta_g\phi_h=\phi_h$. Given a smooth submanifold $H \subset M$ of codimension $k\geq 1$, we find conditions on the pair $(\{\phi_h\},H)$ for which $$ \Big|\int_H\phi_hd\sigma_H\Big|=o(h^{\frac{1-k}{2}}),\qquad h\to 0^+. $$ One such condition is that the set of conormal directions to $H$ that are recurrent has measure $0$. In particular, we show that the upper bound holds for any $H$ if $(M,g)$ is surface with Anosov geodesic flow or a manifold of constant negative curvature. The results are obtained by characterizing the behavior of the defect measures of eigenfunctions with maximal averages., Comment: 47 pages, 1 figure

We prove new, sharp, wavenumber-explicit bounds on the norms of the Helmholtz single- and double-layer boundary-integral operators as mappings from $L^2(\partial \Omega)\rightarrow H^1(\partial \Omega)$ (where $\partial\Omega$ is the boundary of the obstacle). The new bounds are obtained using estimates on the restriction to the boundary of quasimodes of the Laplacian, building on recent work by the first author and collaborators. Our main motivation for considering these operators is that they appear in the standard second-kind boundary-integral formulations, posed in $L^2(\partial \Omega)$, of the exterior Dirichlet problem for the Helmholtz equation. Our new wavenumber-explicit $L^2(\partial \Omega)\rightarrow H^1(\partial \Omega)$ bounds can then be used in a wavenumber-explicit version of the classic compact-perturbation analysis of Galerkin discretisations of these second-kind equations; this is done in the companion paper [Galkowski, M\"uller, Spence, arXiv 1608.01035]., Comment: Version 3 of 1608.01035 has been split into Version 4 of that submission and this present submission

In this article we develop new techniques for studying concentration of Laplace eigenfunctions $\phi_\lambda$ as their frequency, $\lambda$, grows. The method consists of controlling $\phi_\lambda(x)$ by decomposing $\phi_\lambda$ into a superposition of geodesic beams that run through the point $x$. Each beam is localized in phase-space on a tube centered around a geodesic whose radius shrinks slightly slower than $\lambda^{-\frac{1}{2}}$. We control $\phi_\lambda(x)$ by the $L^2$-mass of $\phi_\lambda$ on each geodesic tube and derive a purely dynamical statement through which $\phi_\lambda(x)$ can be studied. In particular, we obtain estimates on $\phi_\lambda(x)$ by decomposing the set of geodesic tubes into those that are non self-looping for time $T$ and those that are. This approach allows for quantitative improvements, in terms of $T$, on the available bounds for $L^\infty$ norms, $L^p$ norms, pointwise Weyl laws, and averages over submanifolds., Comment: 61 pages, 2 figures. Improved exposition and includes new explanatory material in the introduction as well as an examples section (1.5) and a full section on comparison with previous work (1.6). Appendices A.1 (Index of notation) and B were also added

We describe a new approach to understanding averages of high energy Laplace eigenfunctions, $u_h$, over submanifolds, $$ \Big|\int _H u_hd\sigma_H\Big| $$ where $H\subset M$ is a submanifold and $\sigma_H$ the induced by the Riemannian metric on $M$. This approach can be applied uniformly to submanifolds of codimension $1\leq k\leq n$ and in particular, gives a new approach to understanding $\|u_h\|_{L^\infty(M)}$. The method, developed in the author's recent work together with Y. Canzani and J. Toth, relies on estimating averages by the behavior of $u_h$ microlocally near the conormal bundle to $H$. By doing this, we are able to obtain quantitative improvements on eigenfunction averages under certain uniform non-recurrent conditions on the conormal directions to $H$. In particular, we do not require any global assumptions on the manifold $(M,g)$., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures

We study the relationship between $L^\infty$ growth of eigenfunctions and their $L^2$ concentration as measured by defect measures. In particular, we characterize the defect measures of any sequence of eigenfunctions with maximal $L^\infty$ growth, showing that they must be neither more concentrated nor more diffuse than the zonal harmonics. As a consequence, we obtain new proofs of results on the geometry manifolds with maximal eigenfunction growth obtained by Sogge--Zelditch, and Sogge--Toth--Zelditch., 29 pages

We consider a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ (possibly with boundary) and $\Sigma \subset M\setminus \partial M$ an interior hypersurface (possibly with boundary). We study observation and control from $\Sigma$ for both the wave and heat equations. For the wave equation, we prove controllability from $\Sigma$ in time $T$ under the assumption $(\mathcal{T}GCC)$ that all generalized bicharacteristics intersect $\Sigma$ transversally in the time interval $(0,T)$. For the heat equation we prove unconditional controllability from $\Sigma$. As a result, we obtain uniform lower bounds for the Cauchy data of Laplace eigenfunctions on $\Sigma$ under $\mathcal{T}GCC$ and unconditional exponential lower bounds on such Cauchy data., Comment: 45 pages 1 figure

We prove a Weyl upper bound on the number of scattering resonances in strips for manifolds with Euclidean infinite ends. In contrast with previous results, we do not make any strong structural assumptions on the geodesic flow on the trapped set (such as hyperbolicity) and instead use propagation statements up to the Ehrenfest time. By a similar method we prove a decay statement with high probability for linear waves with random initial data. The latter statement is related heuristically to the Weyl upper bound. For geodesic flows with positive escape rate, we obtain a power improvement over the trivial Weyl bound and exponential decay up to twice the Ehrenfest time., Comment: 36 pages, 5 figures; minor revisions

Let $(M,g)$ be a compact, smooth, Riemannian manifold and $\{ \phi_h \}$ an $L^2$-normalized sequence of Laplace eigenfunctions with defect measure $\mu$. Let $H$ be a smooth hypersurface. Our main result says that when $\mu$ is $\textit{not}$ concentrated conormally to $H$, the eigenfunction restrictions to $H$ and the restrictions of their normal derivatives to $H$ have integrals converging to 0 as $h \to 0^+$., Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure

Let $(\Omega,g)$ be a compact, real-analytic Riemannian manifold with real-analytic boundary $\partial \Omega.$ The harmonic extensions of the boundary Dirchlet-to-Neumann eigenfunctions are called Steklov eigenfunctions. We show that the Steklov eigenfuntions decay exponentially into the interior in terms of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann eigenvalues and give a sharp rate of decay to first order at the boundary. The proof uses the Poisson representation for the Steklov eigenfunctions combined with sharp $h$-microlocal concentration estimates for the boundary Dirichlet-to-Neumann eigenfunctions near the cosphere bundle $S^*\partial \Omega.$ These estimates follow from sharp estimates on the concentration of the FBI transforms of solutions to analytic pseudodifferential equations $Pu=0$ near the characteristic set $\{\sigma(P)=0\}$., Comment: 1 figure, 42 pages

Given an Euclidean domain with very mild regularity properties, we prove that there exist perturbations of the Dirichlet Laplacian of the form $-(I+S_\epsilon)\Delta$ with $\|S_\epsilon\|_{L^2\to L^2}\leq \epsilon$ whose high energy eigenfunctions are quantum uniquely ergodic (QUE). Moreover, if we impose stronger regularity on the domain, the same result holds with $\|S_\epsilon\|_{L^2\to H^\gamma}\leq \epsilon$ for $\gamma>0$ depending on the domain. We also give a proof of a local Weyl law for domains with rough boundaries., Comment: 32 pages

Let $M$ be a compact manifold with or without boundary and $H\subset M$ be a smooth, interior hypersurface. We study the restriction of Laplace eigenfunctions solving $(-h^2\Delta_g-1)u=0$ to $H$. In particular, we study the degeneration of $u|_H$ as one microlocally approaches the glancing set by finding the optimal power $s_0$ so that $(1+h^2\Delta_H)_+^{s_0}u|_H$ remains uniformly bounded in $L^2(H)$ as $h\to 0$. Moreover, we show that this bound is saturated at every $h$-dependent scale near glancing using examples on the disk and sphere. We give an application of our estimates to quantum ergodic restriction theorems., Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure

We give a quantitative version of Vainberg's method relating pole free regions to propagation of singularities for black box scatterers. In particular, we show that there is a logarithmic resonance free region near the real axis of size $\tau$ with polynomial bounds on the resolvent if and only if the wave propagator gains derivatives at rate $\tau$. Next we show that if there exist singularities in the wave trace at times tending to infinity which smooth at rate $\tau$, then there are resonances in logarithmic strips whose width is given by $\tau$. As our main application of these results, we give sharp bounds on the size of resonance free regions in scattering on geometrically nontrapping manifolds with conic points. Moreover, these bounds are generically optimal on exteriors of nontrapping polygonal domains., Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure

We prove a quantum version of the Sabine law from acoustics describing the location of resonances in transmission problems. This work extends the author's previous work to a broader class of systems. Our main applications are to scattering by transparent obstacles, scattering by highly frequency dependent delta potentials, and boundary stabilized wave equations. We give a sharp characterization of the resonance free regions in terms of dynamical quantities. In particular, we relate the imaginary part of resonances or generalized eigenvalues to the chord lengths and reflectivity coefficients for the ray dynamics, thus proving a quantum version of the Sabine law., 75 pages, 10 figures. A portion of the semiclassical preliminaries section is taken from arXiv:1204.1305 with the authors' permission

We study high energy resonances for the operators $-\Delta +\delta_{\partial\Omega}\otimes V$ and $-\Delta+\delta_{\partial\Omega}'\otimes V\partial_\nu$ where $\Omega$ is strictly convex with smooth boundary, $V:L^2(\partial\Omega)\to L^2(\partial\Omega)$ may depend on frequency, and $\delta_{\partial\Omega}$ is the surface measure on $\partial\Omega$. These operators are model Hamiltonians for quantum corrals and leaky quantum graphs. We give a quantum version of the Sabine Law from the study of acoustics for both the $\delta$ and $\delta'$ interactions. It characterizes the decay rates (imaginary parts of resonances) in terms of the system's ray dynamics. In particular, the decay rates are controlled by the average reflectivity and chord length of the barrier. For the $\delta$ interaction we show that generically there are infinitely many resonances arbitrarily close to the resonance free region found by our theorem. In the case of the $\delta'$ interaction, the quantum Sabine law gives the existence of a resonance free region that converges to the real axis at a fixed polynomial rate and is optimal in the case of the unit disk in the plane. As far as the author is aware, this is the only class of examples that is known to have resonances converging to the real axis at a fixed polynomial rate but no faster. The proof of our theorem requires several new technical tools. We adapt intersecting Lagrangian distributions to the semiclassical setting and give a description of the kernel of the free resolvent as such a distribution. We also construct a semiclassical version of the Melrose--Taylor parametrix for complex energies. We use these constructions to give a complete microlocal description of boundary layer operators and to prove sharp high energy estimates on the boundary layer operators in the case that $\partial\Omega$ is smooth and strictly convex., Comment: A portion of the semiclassical preliminaries section is taken from arXiv:1204.1305 with the authors' permission. This update includes the material from the previous version

We establish high energy $L^2$ estimates for the restriction of the free Green's function to hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^d$. As an application, we estimate the size of a logarithmic resonance free region for scattering by potentials of the form $V\otimes \delta_{\Gamma}$, where $\Gamma \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ is a finite union of compact subsets of embedded hypersurfaces. In odd dimensions we prove a resonance expansion for solutions to the wave equation with such a potential., Comment: 24 pages

We study high energy resonances for the operator $-\Delta_{V,\partial\Omega}:=-\Delta+\delta_{\partial\Omega}\otimes V $ when $V$ has strong frequency dependence. The operator $-\Delta_{V,\partial\Omega}$ is a Hamiltonian used to model both quantum corrals and leaky quantum graphs. Since highly frequency dependent delta potentials are out of reach of the more general techniques in previous work, we study the special case where $\Omega=B(0,1)\subset \mathbb{R}^2$ and $V\equiv h^{-\alpha }V_0>0$ with $\alpha\leq 1$. Here $h^{-1}\sim \Re \lambda$ is the frequency. We give sharp bounds on the size of resonance free regions for $\alpha\leq 1$ and the location of bands of resonances when $5/6\leq \alpha\leq 1$. Finally, we give a lower bound on the number of resonances in logarithmic size strips: $-M\log \Re \lambda\leq \Im \lambda \leq 0$., Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

We consider operators $-\Delta + X$ where $X$ is a constant vector field, in a bounded domain and show spectral instability when the domain is expanded by scaling. More generally, we consider semiclassical elliptic boundary value problems which exhibit spectral instability for small values of the semiclassical parameter h, which should be thought of as the reciprocal of the Peclet constant. This instability is due to the presence of the boundary: just as in the case of $-\Delta + X$, some of our operators are normal when considered on R^d. We characterize the semiclassical pseudospectrum of such problems as well as the areas of concentration of quasimodes. As an application, we prove a result about exit times for diffusion processes in bounded domains. We also demonstrate instability for a class of spectrally stable nonlinear evolution problems that are associated to these elliptic operators., Comment: 43 pages, 6 figures

We examine high energy eigenfunctions for the Dirichlet Laplacian on domains where the billiard flow exhibits mixed dynamical behavior. (More generally, we consider semiclassical Schrodinger operators with mixed assumptions on the Hamiltonian flow.) Specificially, we assume that the billiard flow has an invariant ergodic component, U, and study defect measures, mu, of positivie density subsequences of eigenfunctions (and, more generally, of almost orthogonal quasimodes). We show that any defect measure associated to such a subsequence, when restricted to U, satisfies mu = c mu_L where mu_L is the Liouville measure. This proves part of a conjecture of Percival., Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures

We consider a nonlinear evolution problem with an asymptotic parameter and construct examples in which the linearized operator has spectrum uniformly bounded away from Re z >= 0 (that is, the problem is spectrally stable), yet the nonlinear evolution blows up in short times for arbitrarily small initial data. We interpret the results in terms of semiclassical pseudospectrum of the linearized operator: despite having the spectrum in Re z < -c < 0, the resolvent of the linearized operator grows very quickly in parts of the region Re z > 0. We also illustrate the results numerically.

The synthesis of stable, monodisperse, shaped copper nanoparticles has been difficult, partially because of copper's propensity for oxidation. This article reports the findings of an investigation of a synthetic route for the synthesis of size-controllable and potentially shape-controllable molecularly capped copper nanoparticles. The approach involved the manipulation of reaction temperature for the synthesis of copper nanoparticles in organic solvents in the presence of amine and acid capping agents. By manipulating the reaction temperature, this route has been demonstrated for the production of copper nanoparticles ranging from 5 to 25 nm. The size dependence of the melting temperature of copper nanoparticles, especially for surface melting, is believed to play an important role in interparticle coalescence, leading to size growth as the reaction temperature is increased. Control of the reaction temperature and capping molecules has also been demonstrated to produce copper nanoparticles with different shapes such as rods and cubes. The previously proposed combination of the selective formation of a seed precursor and a selective growth direction due to the preferential adsorption of capping agents on certain nanocrystal facets is believed to be responsible for shape formation by kinetically controlling the growth rates of crystal facets. The nanoparticles are characterized using TEM, XRD, and UV-visible techniques. A mechanistic consideration of the size control and shape formation is also discussed.