SEMICLASSICAL STRUCTURE OF TRACE FORMULAS

Trace formulas provide the only general relations known connecting quantum mechanics with classical mechanics in the case that the classical motion is chaotic. In particular, they connect quantal objects such as the density of states with classical periodic orbits. In this paper, several trace formulas, including those of Gutzwiller, Balian and Bloch, Tabor, and Berry, are examined from a geometrical standpoint. New forms of the amplitude determinant in asymptotic theory are developed as tools for this examination. The meaning of caustics in these formulas is revealed in terms of intersections of Lagrangian manifolds in phase space. The periodic orbits themselves appear as caustics of an unstable kind, lying on the intersection of two Lagrangian manifolds in the appropriate phase space. New insight is obtained into the Weyl correspondence and the Wigner function, especially their caustic structures. © 1990 American Institute of Physics.