Quantum Ergodic Restriction Theorems. I: Interior Hypersurfaces in Domains with Ergodic Billiards

Quantum ergodic restriction (QER) is the problem of finding conditions on a hypersurface H so that restrictions \({\phi_j |_H}\) to H of Δ-eigenfunctions of Riemannian manifolds (M, g) with ergodic geodesic flow are quantum ergodic on H. We prove two kinds of results: First (i) for any smooth hypersurface H in a piecewise-analytic Euclidean domain, the Cauchy data \({(\phi_j|H,\partial_{\nu}^H \phi_j|H)}\) is quantum ergodic if the Dirichlet and Neumann data are weighted appropriately. Secondly, (ii) we give conditions on H so that the Dirichlet (or Neumann) data is individually quantum ergodic. The condition involves the almost nowhere equality of left and right Poincaré maps for H. The proof involves two further novel results: (iii) a local Weyl law for boundary traces of eigenfunctions, and (iv) an ‘almost-orthogonality’ result for Fourier integral operators whose canonical relations almost nowhere commute with the geodesic flow.