Macroscopic limits of chaotic eigenfunctions

Abstract

We give an overview of the interplay between the behavior of high energy eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a compact Riemannian manifold and the dynamical properties of the geodesic flow on that manifold. This includes the Quantum Ergodicity theorem, the Quantum Unique Ergodicity conjecture, entropy bounds, and uniform lower bounds on mass of eigenfunctions. The above results belong to the domain of quantum chaos and use microlocal analysis, which is a theory behind the classical/quantum, or particle/wave, correspondence in physics. We also discuss the toy model of quantum cat maps and the challenges it poses for Quantum Unique Ergodicity.