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Yves Colin de Verdière

Publications and source records attributed to Yves Colin de Verdière.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

Weyl asymptotics for singular metrics with a variable boundary degeneracy exponent

We consider a compact smooth manifold $X$ of dimension $n+1$ with boundary $M=\partial X$. In a collar neighborhood of $M$, we assume that the metric has the form $g=u^{-α}\bar g$, where $u$ is a boundary defining function, $α\in C^1(M;[0,2))$ and $\bar g$ is a $C^1$ Riemannian metric up to $M$. Since $α<2$, the boundary lies at finite $g$-distance and $(X,g)$ is a singular metric space. We study the Weyl asymptotics of the Friedrichs Laplacian $\triangle\_g$ when the degeneracy exponent $α$ varies along $M$. If the maximum $α\_{\mathrm{max}}$ of $α$ on $M$ is strictly larger than the critical value $α\_c=\frac{2}{n+1}$, then we prove that the points where $α$ is close to $α\_{\mathrm{max}}$ govern the leading term in the Weyl asymptotics. If $α\_{\mathrm{max}}\leqα\_c$, then the leading term is governed by the truncated volume $\vol\_g(\{\dist(\cdot,M)>λ^{-1/2}\})$. When the maximum set of $α$ is Morse-Bott, we compute the associated constants and the logarithmic corrections. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first Weyl law in this setting with a boundary-dependent degeneracy exponent. The results highlight a sharp transition at $α\_c$ between a boundary-dominated non-classical regime and a truncated-volume regime.

math.SP↗

On gravito-inertial surface waves

In geophysical environments, wave motions that are shaped by the action of gravity and global rotation bear the name of gravito-inertial waves. We present a geometrical description of gravito-inertial surface waves, which are low-frequency waves existing in the presence of a solid boundary. We consider an idealized fluid model for an incompressible fluid enclosed in a smooth compact three-dimensional domain, subject to a constant rotation vector. The fluid is also stratified in density under a constant Brunt-Väisälä frequency. The spectral problem is formulated in terms of the pressure, which satisfies a Poincaré equation within the domain, and a Kelvin equation on the boundary. The Poincaré equation is elliptic when the wave frequency is small enough, such that we can use the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator to reduce the Kelvin equation to a pseudo-differential equation on the boundary. We find that the wave energy is concentrated on the boundary for large covectors, and can exhibit surface wave attractors for generic domains. In an ellipsoid, we show that these waves are square-integrable and reduce to spherical harmonics on the boundary.

math.AP↗

The spectrum of the Poincar{é} operator in an ellipsoid

We study the spectrum of the Poincaré operator in triaxial ellipsoids subject to a constant rotation. As explained in the paper, this mathematical problem is interesting for many physical applications. It is known that the spectrum of this bounded self-adjoint operator is pure point with polynomial eigenvectors [Backus & Rieutord, Phys. Rev. E 95 (2017), 053116]. We give two new proofs of this result. Moreover, we describe the large-degree asymptotics of the restriction of that operator to polynomial vector fields of fixed degrees. The main tool is the microlocal analysis of the partial differential equation satisfied by the orthogonal polynomials in ellipsoids. This work also contains numerical calculations of these spectra, showing a very good agreement with the mathematical results.

math.AP↗

On the spectral theory of sign-changing Laplace operators

We study spectral theory of sign-changing Laplace operators using semi-classical Dirichlet-to-Neumann maps. We prove the existence of modesconcentrated on the interface and describe an effective semi-classical equation for them.

math.AP↗

Inertia-gravity waves in geophysical vortices

Pancake-like vortices are often generated by turbulence in geophysical flows. Here, we study the inertia-gravity oscillations that can exist within such geophysical vortices, due to the combined action of rotation and gravity. We consider a fluid enclosed within a triaxial ellipsoid, which is stratified in density with a constant Brunt-Väisälä frequency (using the Boussinesq approximation) and uniformly rotating along a (possibly) tilted axis with respect to gravity. The wave problem is then governed by a mixed hyperbolic-elliptic equation for the velocity. As in the rotating non-stratified case considered by Vantieghem (2014, Proc. R. Soc. A, 470, 20140093, doi:10.1098/rspa.2014.0093), we find that the spectrum is pure point in ellipsoids (i.e. only consists of eigenvalues) with smooth polynomial eigenvectors. Then, we characterise the spectrum using numerical computations (obtained with a bespoke Galerkin method) and asymptotic spectral theory. Finally, the results are discussed in light of natural applications (e.g. for Mediterranean eddies or Jupiter's vortices).

physics.flu-dyn↗

Internal waves in 2D domains with ergodic classical dynamics

We study a model of internal waves in an effectively 2D aquarium under periodic forcing. In the case when the underlying classical dynamics has sufficiently irrational rotation number, we prove that the energy of the internal waves remains bounded. This involves studying the spectrum of a related 0-th order pseudodifferential operator at spectral parameters corresponding to such dynamics. For the special cases of rectangular and elliptic domains, we give an explicit spectral description of that operator.

math.AP↗

Exotic eigenvalues of shrinking metric graphs

Eigenvalue spectrum of the Laplacian on a metric graph with arbitrary but fixed vertex conditions is investigated in the limit as the lengths of all edges decrease to zero at the same rate. It is proved that there are exactly four possible types of eigenvalue asymptotics. The number of eigenvalues of each type is expressed via the index and nullity of a form defined in terms of the vertex conditions.

math.SP↗

A proof of a Melrose's trace formula

We give a new proof ofan extension of the Chazarain-Duistermaat-Guillemin wave traceformula to the case of 3D-contact manifolds.We use a normal form allowing to reduce to the case of the Heisenberg group.

math.AP↗

Propagation of well-prepared states along Martinet singular geodesics

We prove that for the Martinet wave equation with "flat" metric, which a subelliptic wave equation, singularities can propagate at any speed between 0 and 1 along any singular geodesic. This is in strong contrast with the usual propagation of singularities at speed 1 for wave equations with elliptic Laplacian.

math.AP↗

Spiraling of sub-Riemannian geodesics around the Reeb flow in the 3D contact case

We consider a closed three-dimensional contact sub-Riemannian manifold. The objective of this note is to provide a precise description of the sub-Riemannian geodesics with large initial momenta: we prove that they "spiral around the Reeb orbits", not only in the phase space but also in the configuration space. Our analysis is based on a normal form along any Reeb orbit due to Melrose.

math.DG↗

Small-time asymptotics of hypoelliptic heat kernels near the diagonal, nilpotentization and related results

We establish small-time asymptotic expansions for heat kernels of hypoelliptic Hörmander operators in a neighborhood of the diagonal, generalizing former results obtained in particular by Métivier and by Ben Arous. The coefficients of our expansions are identified in terms of the nilpotentization of the underlying sub-Riemannian structure. Our approach is purely analytic and relies in particular on local and global subelliptic estimates as well as on the local nature of small-time asymptotics of heat kernels. The fact that our expansions are valid not only along the diagonal but in an asymptotic neighborhood of the diagonal is the main novelty, useful in view of deriving Weyl laws for subelliptic Laplacians. In turn, we establish a number of other results on hypoelliptic heat kernels that are interesting in themselves, such as Kac's principle of not feeling the boundary, asymptotic results for singular perturbations of hypoelliptic operators, global smoothing properties for selfadjoint heat semigroups.

math.AP↗

Spectral asymptotics for sub-Riemannian Laplacians. I: quantum ergodicity and quantum limits in the 3D contact case

This is the first paper of a series in which we plan to study spectral asymptotics for sub-Riemannian Laplacians and to extend results that are classical in the Riemannian case concerning Weyl measures, quantum limits, quantum ergodicity, quasi-modes, trace formulae.Even if hypoelliptic operators have been well studied from the point of view of PDEs, global geometrical and dynamical aspects have not been the subject of much attention. As we will see, already in the simplest case, the statements of the results in the sub-Riemannian setting are quite different from those in the Riemannian one. Let us consider a sub-Riemannian (sR) metric on a closed three-dimensional manifold with an oriented contact distribution. There exists a privileged choice of the contact form, with an associated Reeb vector field and a canonical volume form that coincides with the Popp measure. We establish a Quantum Ergodicity (QE) theorem for the eigenfunctions of any associated sR Laplacian under the assumption that the Reeb flow is ergodic. The limit measure is given by the normalized Popp measure.This is the first time that such a result is established for a hypoelliptic operator, whereas the usual Shnirelman theorem yields QE for the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a closed Riemannian manifold with ergodic geodesic flow.To prove our theorem, we first establish a microlocal Weyl law, which allows us to identify the limit measure and to prove the microlocal concentration of the eigenfunctions on the characteristic manifold of the sR Laplacian. Then, we derive a Birkhoff normal form along this characteristic manifold, thus showing that, in some sense, all 3D contact structures are microlocally equivalent. The quantum version of this normal form provides a useful microlocal factorization of the sR Laplacian. Using the normal form, the factorization and the ergodicity assumption, we finally establish a variance estimate, from which QE follows.We also obtain a second result, which is valid without any ergodicity assumption: every Quantum Limit (QL) can be decomposed in a sum of two mutually singular measures: the first measure is supported on the unit cotangent bundle and is invariant under the sR geodesic flow, and the second measure is supported on the characteristic manifold of the sR Laplacian and is invariant under the lift of the Reeb flow. Moreover, we prove that the first measure is zero for most QLs.

math.SP↗

Quantum ergodicity and quantum limits for sub-Riemannian Laplacians

This paper is a proceedings version of \cite{CHT-I}, in which we state a Quantum Ergodicity (QE) theorem on a 3D contact manifold, and in which we establish some properties of the Quantum Limits (QL). We consider a sub-Riemannian (sR) metric on a compact 3D manifold with an oriented contact distribution. There exists a privileged choice of the contact form, with an associated Reeb vector field and a canonical volume form that coincides with the Popp measure. We state a QE theorem for the eigenfunctions of any associated sR Laplacian, under the assumption that the Reeb flow is ergodic. The limit measure is given by the normalized canonical contact measure. To our knowledge, this is the first extension of the usual Schnirelman theorem to a hypoelliptic operator. We provide as well a decomposition result of QL's, which is valid without any ergodicity assumption. We explain the main steps of the proof, and we discuss possible extensions to other sR geometries.

math.SP↗

Singularities of the wave trace near cluster points of the length spectrum

Let $-λ_j$ be the eigenvalues of the Laplace operator on the unit disk with Dirichlet conditions. The distribution $h(t) = \sum_j e^{i\sqrtλ_j t}$ is the trace of the solution operator of the wave equation on the disk. It is well known that $h$ has isolated singularities at the lengths of the reflecting geodesics. In particular, $h$ is singular at $t_k$, the perimeter of the regular inscribed polygon with $k$ sides. Evidently, $t_k < 2π$, the perimeter of the circle, and $t_k$ tends to $2π$. In this paper, we show that $h(t)$ is infinitely differentiable as $t$ tends to $2π$ from the right.

math.AP↗

A semi-classical inverse problem II: reconstruction of the potential

This paper is the continuation of our work with Victor Guillemin; Victor and I proved that the Taylor expansion of the potential at a generic non degenerate critical point is determined by the semi-classical spectrum of the associated Schrödinger operator near the corresponding critical value. Here, I show that, under some genericity assumptions, the potential of the 1D Schroedinger operator is determined by its semi-classical spectrum. Moreover, there is an explicit reconstruction. This paper is strongly related to a paper of David Gurarie (J. Math. Phys. 36:1934--1944 (1995)).

math-ph↗