The wave trace and Birkhoff billiards (Q6039733)

In this work a Hadamard-Riesz-type parametrix for the wave propagator in bounded planar domains \(\Omega\) with smooth and strictly convex boundary, is developed. The derived parametrix is mainly used to produce asymptotic expansions for the distributional wave trace \(\mathrm{Tr} \cos t \sqrt{-\Delta}\) near isolated lengths in the length spectrum, with \(\Delta\) being the Dirichlet Laplacian on a domain \(\Omega\). Following the work by \textit{S. Marvizi} and \textit{R. Melrose} [J. Differ. Geom. 17, 475--502 (1982; Zbl 0492.53033)], its principal symbol in terms of geometric data associated to the underlying billiard map is computed. This result provides new formulas for the wave invariants. The article is well written. All the (sometimes technical) proofs are presented step by step. The reference list includes a rich variety of good papers supplementing this research.