Weyl sums and atomic energy oscillations (Q1892732)

In the paper certain sums that play a crucial role in the asymptotic analysis of non-relativistic atomic energies are studied in great detail. To this purpose, the authors extend the usual Van der Corput's method for exponential sums (involving Poisson's summation plus stationary phase analysis) in order to study the oscillating term appearing in the quantum theory of large atoms. The authors manage to obtain an interpretation of the phenomena in terms of classical dynamics and produce in the paper sharp asymptotic upper and lower bounds for the oscillations.