Energy-level statistics of model quantum systems: Universality and scaling in a lattice-point problem

We investigate the statistics of the numberN(R, S) of lattice pointsnZ², in an annular domain (R, w)=(R+w)ARA, whereR, w>0. HereA is a fixed convex set with smooth boundary andw is chosen so that the area of (R, w) isS. The statistics comes fromR being taken as random (with a smooth density) in some interval [c₁T,c₂,T],c₂>c₁>0. We find that in the limitT the variance and distribution of N=N(R; S)–S depend strongly on howS grows withT. There is a saturation regimeS/T, asT, in which the fluctuations in N coming from the two boundaries of are independent. Then there is a scaling regime,S/Tz, 0<z<, in which the distribution depends onz in an almost periodic way going to a Gaussian asz0. The variance in this limit approachesz for genericA, but can be larger for degenerate cases. The former behavior is what one would expect from the Poisson limit of a distribution for annuli of finite area.