The asymptotic structure of forward scattering

Abstract

Perturbed plane waves are fundamental objects in scattering theory on Euclidean space and asymptotically Euclidean spaces. In this paper, we investigate the structure of perturbed plane waves in the $\textit{forward}$ direction, in which the outgoing spherical wave is typically singular and conjoined to the incoming plane wave. Melrose & Zworski provided a microlocal description (in the more general setting of asymptotically conic manifolds) using their notion of Lagrangian distributions associated to pairs of intersecting Legendrian submanifolds, on the way to proving that the S-matrix is an FIO. Here, we revisit the problem in the asymptotically Euclidean case, for which the oscillatory integrals used by Melrose--Zworski attain their most complicated form (relative to the more general asymptotically conic case). We seek a more elementary description in terms of physical-space asymptotics. These are specified using a two-faced compactification $X\hookleftarrow \mathbb{R}^d$, with one face for each asymptotic regime. We prove full polyhomogeneity. A transport equation arises as a model problem at the main face (`bf'). The quantum inverted harmonic oscillator arises as a model problem at the front face (`ff').