Classical and quantum ergodicity on orbifolds (Q1933343)

Orbifolds were introduced in the 1950s by Satake as topological spaces generalizing smooth manifolds. The principal result of the paper is that for any positive, first-order self-adjoint elliptic pseudodifferential operator \(P\) on a compact orbifold \(X\) with positive principal symbol \(p\), the ergodicity of the Hamiltonian flow of \(p\) implies the quantum ergodicity for the operator \(P\). Besides, the ergodicity is proved for the geodesic flow on a compact Riemannian orbifold of negative sectional curvature. These results are extensions of classical results for manifolds due to Shnirelman, Colin de Verdière and Zelditch.