Hecke theory and equidistribution for the quantization of linear maps of the torus (Q1568659)

Investigating the difficult problem of so-called ``quantum unique ergodicity'' the authors study a simplified special situation, the quantization of linear hyperbolic automorphisms of the 2-dimensional torus \(\mathbb{T}^2\). Instead of the Hamiltonian flow the discrete time dynamics generated by the iterations of a single hyperbolic element \(A\in \text{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})\) is studied (a so-called ``cat map''). A quantization of these maps leads to the admissible values \(h= 1/N\) (\(N\) a natural number) of Planck's constant, and the Hilbert space of states \({\mathcal H}_N= L^2(\mathbb{Z}/N\mathbb{Z})\) is finite-dimensional. Every classical observable \(f\in C^\infty(\mathbb{T}^2)\) has an associated operator \(Op_N(f)\) on \({\mathcal H}_n\), and the quantization of the cat map gives a unitary operator \(U_N(A)\) on \({\mathcal H}_N\). In the model at hand the normalized eigenvectors \(\varphi\) of \(U_N(A)\) are the analogues of the eigenmodes of the Laplacian and the problem is to investigate the limiting behaviour of \(\langle Op_N(f)\varphi,\varphi\rangle\) as \(N\to\infty\). In order to circumvent the difficulties caused by the degeneracies of the spectrum of \(U_N(A)\) the authors restrict to the eigenstates \(\varphi\) of both \(U_N(A)\) and of all the so-called ``Hecke operators''. Then the main theorem of the paper under review states: If \(A\in\Gamma(4)\) is a hyperbolic matrix and \(f\in C^\infty(\mathbb{T}^2)\) is a smooth observable then for all normalized ``Hecke eigenfunctions'' \(\varphi\in{\mathcal H}_N\) the expectation values \(\langle Op_N(f)\varphi,\varphi\rangle\) converge to the phase space average of \(f\) as \(N\to\infty\).