Berry's random wave conjecture for chaotic billiards

Let ΩR2\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^2 be a chaotic billiard, so its billiard flow is ergodic and has positive topological entropy. Let {un}\{u_n\} be an orthonormal sequence of eigenfunctions, and let σΩ({unj}j=1)\sigma^\Omega(\{u_{n_j}\}_{j=1}^\infty) denote the accumulation-point set of the associated local measures on the space

M:={φC(R2,R):Δφ+φ=0}.\mathcal{M}:=\{\varphi\in C^\infty(\mathbb{R}^2,\mathbb{R}):\Delta\varphi+\varphi=0\}.

Let μRMW\mu_{\mathrm{RMW}} be the Gaussian probability measure on M\mathcal{M} associated with the random monochromatic wave. Berry's random wave conjecture. There exists a subsequence of positive integers {nj}j=1\{n_j\}_{j=1}^\infty with full density such that

σΩ({unj}j=1)={μRMW}.\sigma^\Omega(\{u_{n_j}\}_{j=1}^\infty)=\{\mu_{\mathrm{RMW}}\}.

This conjecture predicts the typical Planck-scale structure of high-energy eigenfunctions in chaotic systems. It is a challenging open problem in quantum chaos; no counterexamples are known, but rigorous local-limit results are essentially restricted to the flat two-torus.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Alberto Enciso, Alba Garcia-Ruiz and Daniel Peralta-Salas, “Local limits of high energy eigenfunctions on integrable billiards”, arXiv:2502.01291 (2025).

Additional references

3 papers in this index state this conjecture (2017–2025). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1810.05601, arXiv:1712.03431.

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