Bouncing-ball modes in ergodic billiards

Abstract

We show that for a horizontally stretched Bunimovich billiard, for almost every stretching parameter, there exists a sequence of eigenfunctions concentrating in the rectangular part. Thanks to the work of Markarian--Oliffson Kamphorst--Pinto de Carvalho, we know that for an open set of parameters such billiards are ergodic. The proof is a result of interaction with ChatGPT 6: we were curious if it could establish the existence of bouncing ball modes for Bunimovich or Sinai billiards. That was not successful until we suggested varying the wings. That produced an essentially complete argument for the existence of quasimodes. We then suggested using Hassell's parameter-variation argument which led to the result about eigenfunctions. The argument was then significantly simplified and clarified by the authors.