Points on nodal lines with given direction (Q2662230)

This paper treats the directional distribution function of nodal lines for eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a planar domain. This quantity counts the number of points where the normal to the nodal line points in a given direction. Furthermore, the authors give upper bounds for the flat torus, and a computation of the expected number for arithmetic random waves is executed. More precisely, let $\Omega$ be a planar domain with piecewise smooth boundary, and let $f$ be an eigenfunction of the Dirichlet Laplacian with eigenvalue $E$ such that $- \varDelta f = E f$. Given a direction $\zeta \in S^1$, let $N_{\zeta}(f)$ be the number of points $x$ on the nodal line $\{ x \in \Omega: \, f(x) = 0 \}$ with normal pointing in the direction $\pm \zeta$, i.e., \[ N_{\zeta}(f) := \# \left\{ x \in \Omega: \, f(x) =0, \,\, \frac{ \nabla f(x)}{ \Vert \nabla f(x) \Vert } = \pm \zeta \right\}. \] The first result below asserts an upper bound for $N_{\zeta}(f)$ with the only exceptions being when the nodal line contains a closed geodesic. It will follow as a particular case of a structure result on the set \[ A_{\zeta}(f) := \{ x \in \Omega: \, f(x) =0, \, \langle \nabla f(x), \zeta^{\perp} \rangle = 0 \} \] of nodal directional points, i.e., the set of nodal points where $\nabla f$ is orthogonal to $\zeta^{\perp}$, thus it is co-linear to $\zeta$, $A_{\zeta}(f)$ contains all the singular nodal points of $f^{-1}(0)$, and could also contain certain closed geodesics in direction orthogonal to $\zeta$. Theorem 1. Let $\zeta \in S^1$ be a direction, and $f$ be a toral eigenfunction such that $- \varDelta f = E f$ for some $E > 0$. (i) If $\zeta$ is rational, then the set $A_{\zeta}(f)$ consists of at most $\sqrt{E}/ \pi h(\zeta)$ closed geodesics orthogonal to $\zeta$, at most $\frac{2}{\pi^2} E$ nonsingular points not lying on the geodesics, and possibly, singular points of the nodal set, where $h(\zeta)$ is the height for a rational vector. (ii) If $\zeta$ is not rational, then the set $A_{\zeta}(f)$ consists of at most $\frac{2}{\pi^2} E$ nonsingular points, and possibly, singular points of the nodal set. (iii) In particular, if $A_{\zeta}(f)$ does not contain a closed geodesics, then \[ N_{\zeta}(f) \leqslant \frac{2}{\pi^2} \cdot E \] holds. Next the authors compute the expected value of $N_{\zeta}$ for arithmetic random waves, cf. [\textit{F. Oravecz} et al., Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble) 58, No.1, 299--335 (2008; Zbl 1153.35058)]. There are random eigenfunctions on the torus, \[ f(x) = f_n(x) = \sum_{ \lambda \in {\mathcal E}_n } c_{\lambda} \cdot e( \langle \lambda, x \rangle ) \] where $e(z) = e^{ 2 \pi i z}$ and $ {\mathcal E} := \{ \lambda = ( \lambda_1, \lambda_2) \in{\mathbb Z}: \, \Vert \lambda \Vert^2 = n \}$ is the set of all representations of the integer $n = \lambda_1^2 + \lambda_2^2$ as a sum of two integer squares, and $c_{\lambda}$ are standard Gaussian random variables, identically distributed and independent wave for the constraint $c_{- \lambda} = \bar{ c}_{\lambda}$, making $f_n$ real valued eigenfunctions of the Laplacian with eigenvalue $E = 4 \pi^2 n$ for every choice of the coefficients $\{ a_{\lambda} \}, \lambda \in {\mathcal E}_{\lambda}$. Let $\mu_n$ be the atomic measure on the unit circle given by \[ \mu_n = \frac{1}{ r_2(n)} \sum_{ \lambda \in {\mathcal E}_n }\delta_{ \lambda / \sqrt{n} }, \] where $r_2(n) := \# {\mathcal E}_n$, and let \[ \hat{\mu}_n (k) = \frac{1}{ r_2(n)} \sum_{ \lambda = ( \lambda_1, \lambda_2) \in {\mathcal E}_n } \left( \frac{ \lambda_1 + i \lambda_2}{\sqrt{n} } \right)^k \in {\mathbb R} \] be its Fourier coefficients. Theorem 2. For $\zeta = e^{ i \theta} \in S^1$, the expected value of $N_{\zeta}(f)$ for the arithmetic random wave (1.4) is \[ {\mathbb E} [ N_{\zeta} ] = \frac{1}{ \sqrt{2} } n ( 1 + \hat{\mu}_n(4) \cdot \cos( 4 \theta) )^{1/2}. \] For other related works, see e.g. [\textit{M. Krishnapur} et al., Ann. Math. (2) 177, No. 2, 699--737 (2013; Zbl 1314.60101)] as to nodal length fluctuations for arithmetic random waves, and [\textit{A. Logunov}, Ann. Math. (2) 187, No. 1, 221--239 (2018; Zbl 1384.58020)] for nodal sets of Laplace eigenfunctions.