Geometric approach to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation and global parametrices for the Schr\"odinger propagator

Abstract

We construct a family of Fourier Integral Operators, defined for arbitrary large times, representing a global parametrix for the Schr\"odinger propagator when the potential is quadratic at infinity. This construction is based on the geometric approach to the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi equation and thus sidesteps the problem of the caustics generated by the classical flow. Moreover, a detailed study of the real phase function allows us to recover a WKB semiclassical approximation which necessarily involves the multivaluedness of the graph of the Hamiltonian flow past the caustics.