Improved Generalized Periods Estimates Over Curves on Riemannian Surfaces with Nonpositive Curvature

Abstract

We show that on compact Riemann surfaces of nonpositive curvature, the generalized periods, i.e. the $\nu$-th order Fourier coefficients of eigenfunctions $e_\lambda$ over a closed smooth curve $\gamma$ which satisfies a natural curvature condition, go to 0 at the rate of $O((\log\lambda)^{-1/2})$, if $0<|\nu|/\lambda<1-\delta$, for any fixed $0<\delta<1$. Our result implies, for instance, the generalized periods over geodesic circles on any surfaces with nonpositive curvature would converge to zero at the rate of $O((\log\lambda)^{-1/2})$. A direct corollary of our results and the QER theorem of Toth and Zelditch is that for a geodesic circle $\gamma$ on a compact hyperbolic surface, the restriction $e_{\lambda_j}|_\gamma$ of an orthonormal basis $\{e_{\lambda_j}\}$ has a full density subsequence that goes to zero in weak-$L^2(\gamma)$. One key step of our proof is a microlocal decomposition of the measure over $\gamma$ into tangential and transversal parts.