Equidistribution of Phase Shifts in Obstacle Scattering

Abstract

For scattering off a smooth, strictly convex obstacle $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ with positive curvature, we show that the eigenvalues of the scattering matrix -- the phase shifts -- equidistribute on the unit circle as the frequency $k \to \infty$ at a rate proportional to $k^{d - 1}$, under a standard condition on the set of closed orbits of the billiard map in the interior. Indeed, in any sector $S \subset \mathbb{S}^1$ not containing $1$, there are $c_d |S| \mathrm{Vol}(\partial \Omega)\ k^{d - 1} + o(k^{d-1})$ eigenvalues for $k$ large, where $c_d$ is a constant depending only on the dimension. Using this result, the two term asymptotic expansion for the counting function of Dirichlet eigenvalues, and a spectral-duality result of Eckmann-Pillet, we then give an alternative proof of the two term asymptotic of the total scattering phase due to Majda-Ralston.