Semi-classical spectral estimates for Schrödinger operators at a critical level. Case of a degenerate maximum of the potential
Brice Camus
TL;DR
The paper analyzes the semiclassical trace of Schrödinger operators at a critical energy where the potential has a totally degenerate maximum. It develops a local oscillatory integral framework around the equilibrium, deriving a complete asymptotic expansion for the fixed-point contribution, including potential logarithmic terms arising from an arithmetic condition on dimension and degeneracy. The leading term scales as h^{-n+n/2+n/(2k)} and involves invariant sphere-integrals of the leading homogeneous part V_{2k}, with logarithmic corrections determined by Mellin-residue analysis. This work extends semiclassical trace results to degenerate equilibria and provides a methodology for computing leading coefficients, with extensions to general h-admissible operators.
Abstract
We study the semi-classical trace formula at a critical energy level for a Schr\"odinger operator on $\mathbb{R}^{n}$. We assume here that the potential has a totally degenerate critical point associated to a local maximum. The main result, which establishes the contribution of the associated equilibrium in the trace formula, is valid for all time in a compact subset of $\mathbb{R}$ and includes the singularity in $t=0$. For these new contributions the asymptotic expansion involves the logarithm of the parameter $h$. Depending on an explicit arithmetic condition on the dimension and the order of the critical point, this logarithmic contribution can appear in the leading term.
