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# ACLP: Integrating Abduction and Constraint SolvingThis system has been developed in collaboration with A. Michael and C. Mourlas. The system can be obtained from http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/aclp/.

## Introduction

The ACLP framework and system is an attempt to address the problem of providing a high-level declarative programming (or modeling) enviroment for problems of Artificial Intelligence which at the same time has an acceptable computational performance. Its key elements are (i) the support of abduction as a central inference of the system, to facilitate a high-level of expressivity for problem representation, and (ii) the use of constraint solving to enhance the efficiency of the computational process of abductive inference as this is applied on the high-level representation of the problem at hand.

It has been argued in (?) that declarative problem solving, where the proplem representation contains information about properties that hold true in the problem domain rather than information on methods of how we would solve the problem, and abduction are closely related to each other. In an (ideal) declarative setting problem solving consists of filling in missing information from the theory that represents the problem. In other words, the solution consists of an extension of the basic description of the problem so that the problem task (or goal) is satisfied in this extended description. This process of extending the theory is called abduction. For example, in a logical setting, abduction as a problem solving method, assumes that the general data structure for the solution to a problem (or solution carrier) is at the predicate level and hence a solution is described in the same terms and level as the problem itself.

Indeed, abduction allows a high-level representation of problems close to their natural specification suitable for addressing a variety of problems in AI, such as diagnosis, planning and scheduling, natural language understanding, assimilation of sensor data and user modeling. The main advantage of using abduction to solve these problems is the high-level representation or modeling environment that it offers. This in turn provides a high degree of modularity and flexibility which is useful for applications with complex and changing requirements. But although the utility of abduction for formulating such problems in AI is well proven there has been little work (see though (?)) to address the question of whether these abductive formulations can form the basis for computationally effective solutions to realistic problems.

ACLP tries to address this problem by a non-trivial integration of constraint solving within the abductive process. The general pattern of computation in ACLP consists of a cooperative interleaving between hypotheses and constraint generation, via abductive inference, with constraint satisfaction of the generated constraints. Abductive reasoning provides an incremental reduction of the high-level problem representation and goals to abductive hypotheses together with lower-level constraints whose form is problem independent. The integration of abductive reasoning with constraint solving in ACLP is cooperative, in the sense that the constraint solver not only solves the final constraint store generated by the abductive reduction but also affects dynamically this abductive search for a solution. It enables abductive reductions to be pruned early by setting new suitable constraints on the abducible assumptions into the constraint store, provided that this remains satisfiable. During the ACLP computation there is a non-trivial interaction between (i) reduction of goals and consistency checking of abducible assumptions, (ii) setting new constraints in the constraint store of reduction and (iii) generating further abductive hypotheses.

## General Information

Currently, the ACLP system is implemented as a meta-interpreter on top of the CLP language of ECLiPSe. As such the system is relatively compact comprising about 500 lines of code. It is based on the abductive proof procedure developed in (?) (which in turn follows a series of proof procedures (?), (?), (?)) and uses the CLP constraint solver of ECLiPSe to handle constraints over finite domains (integer and atomic elements). The architecture of the system is quite general and can be implemented in a similar way with other constraint solvers.

The ACLP system runs on any platform on which ECLiPSe runs. This includes all major platforms. It can be obtained, together with information on how to use it, from the following web address: http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/aclp/. ACLP programs (see section Applying the System below) are loaded into ECLiPSe together with the ACLP system file, aclp.pl, and executed by calling the top-level ECLiPSe query:

aclp-solve(+Goal, +Initial-hypothesis, ?output-variable).

The output-variable returns a list of abducible hypotheses, with their domain variables constrained according to the dynamic constraints that were generated through the unfolding of the “relevant” part, with respect to the Goal, of the program and the integrity constraints. A subsequent step of labelling on these variables is needed to give a ground solution of our query, +Goal. Various constraint predicates of ECLiPSe can be used at this stage e.g. min\_max/2 or minimize/2 to find an optimal ground solution. If we are not interested in such further optimization we can use the simpler queries:

aclp-solve(+Goal)

aclp-solve(+Goal, +Initial-hypothesis).

The initial-hypothesis variable is a list of ground abducible facts which we want the system to take as given when constructing a solution. It is used when we have partial information about the solution that we are looking for. (If no such information is known then this is given as the empty list.) Its typical use is when we want to recompute the solution to a goal under some new requirements by adapting the old solution as for example in the case of rescheduling. The old solution (or part of this) will then form the initial-hypothesis.

## Applying the System

The ACLP system is a programming environment on top of the ECLiPSe language. An ACLP program is an abductive theory consisting of a triple $`<P,A,IC>`$ where:

* $`P`$ is a finite set of user-defined ECLiPSe clauses,
* $`A`$ is a set of declarations of abducibles predicates in the form of ECLiPSe facts as: $`abducible\mathrm{\_}predicate(predicate\mathrm{\_}name/arity)`$,
* $`IC`$ is a set of integrity constraints written as ECLiPSe rules of the form: $`ic:B_1,\mathrm{},B_n.(n1),`$ where:

+ at least one of the goals $`B_1,\mathrm{},B_n`$ has an abducible predicate, and
    + the rest of the goals can be either positive or negative literals on user-defined predicates or constraint predicates of ECLiPSe.

The (lower-level) problem independent CLP constraint predicates that can be used in the body of a program rule or an integrity constraint can be (i) arithmetic constraint predicates (over the integers) or (ii) logical contraint predicates. The constraint predicates on finite domain variables of ECLiPSe that are supported by the current ACLP implementation are:

the value of variable T1 is not equal to that of variable T2.

the value of variable T1 is equal to that of variable T2.

the value of variable T1 is less than that of variable T2.

the value of variable T1 is less or equal to that of variable T2.

the value of variable T1 is greater than that of variable T2.

the value of variable T1 is greater or equal to that of variable T2.

The equality and inequality constraints are also supported over other non-arithmetic user-defined finite domains. The system also has a term equality constraint, T1##=T2 , where the terms $`T1`$ and $`T2`$ can contain variables one level deep inside a function sympol. In addition, ACLP supports logical constraints such as conjunction, #$``$, and disjunction, #$``$. These simple constraints can be combined to build complex logical constraint expressions. During the ACLP computation constraints maybe negated and their negation is set in the current constraint store. This negation of the constraints is the usual mathematical negation, e.g. the negation of the aritmetic constraint T1#\<T2 is T1#\>=T2. The negation of the logical constraint #$``$ is #$``$.

An ACLP program, $`<P,A,IC>`$, can contain negation as failure literals in $`P`$ and $`IC`$. Negation as failure is handled through abduction simply as another type of abducible in the theory. All occurences of $`not(p)`$ in the program $`P`$ are replaced by $`not\mathrm{\_}p`$ which is treated as an abducible with the canonical integrity constraint $`ic:not\mathrm{\_}p,p.`$ In the current implementation it is necessary for the user to specify explicitly both the fact that $`not\mathrm{\_}p`$ is abducible by adding a statement $`abducible\mathrm{\_}predicate(not\mathrm{\_}p/arity)`$ in the program as well as adding the above canonical constraint in the program. The semantics of negation as failure is that of (partial) Stable Models in the program $`P`$ and Generalised (partial) Stable Models when we consider the whole abductive theory with its integrity constraints $`IC`$. The details of the abductive semantics for ACLP programs and the particular treatment of NAF can be found in (?).

As an example, the ACLP program below is an implementation of the basic axioms (of persistence) of the Event Calculus (?) suitable for abductive planning. The program $`P`$ consists of the following clauses:

```
   holds_at(P,E) :- initially(P,T),
                    not clipped(T,E,P).
   holds_at(P,E) :- initiates(P,A),
                    time(T), T #< E,
                    act(T,A),
                    not clipped(T,E,P).

```

together with the auxiliary definitions:

```
   between(A,B,C) :- A #<B, B#<C.
   time(T) :- maximum_time(Max), T :: 1..Max.

```

The abducible predicates in $`A`$ are the action predicate $`act/2`$ and the NAF predicate $`not\mathrm{\_}clipped/3`$ declared by the following clauses:

```
   abducible_predicate(act/2).
   abducible_predicate(not_clipped/3).

```

The integrity constraints in $`IC`$ contain the negation as failure constraint as the clause:

```
   ic :- not_clipped(T,E,P), terminates(P,A1),
         act(C,A2), A1 ##= A2, between(T,C,E).

```

and contraints that encode the preconditions of actions written as clauses of the general form:

```
   ic :- act(T,A), not preconditions(A,T).

```

In a specific planning domain, e.g. the trucks domain, this will be extended with clauses for the $`initiates`$ and $`terminates`$ predicates in $`P`$, for example:

```
   initiates(in(Obj,Truck),
             load_truck(Obj,Truck,Loc)).
   terminates(at(Obj,Loc),
             load_truck(Obj,Truck,Loc)).

```

and the definitions, again in $`P`$, of the preconditions of the specific actions in the domain, for example:

```
   preconditions(load_truck(Obj,Truck,Loc),T):-
         holds_at(at(Obj,Loc),T),
         holds_at(at(Truck,Loc),T).

```

The initial state is defined by a set of facts of the form $`initially(Property,0)`$, e.g. $`initially(at(package1,city1\mathrm{\_}1),0).`$

### Methodology

ACLP has been applied to several different types of abductive problems such as planning, air-crew scheduling, optical music recognition, analysis of software requirements and intelligent information integration (see below sectionUsers and Useability). Although most of these applications are not of ”industrial scale” they indicate some methodological guidelines that can be followed when using ACLP. As ACLP is a general development framework with no specific application domain these guidelines can only be themselves of a general nature.

The central advantage of an abductive approach is the high-level declarative representation that it allows. This means that the development of the program can be done incrementally starting first with a ”pure” declarative representation based on a simple model of the problem and gradually refine this model to reflect more and more particular domain knowledge of the problem at hand. A central first decision to be taken is the choice of abducibles for the problem. These play the important role of the solution carriers or answers to the problem goals. Each problem has its own abducible answer predicates (c.f. the usual answer holder of a logical variable in LP and CLP ) which means that we can describe directly in our theory (the ACLP program) the desired properties of the solution.

An important methodological step is the distinction between strict validity requirements on the solution of our problem, which are separated in the integrity constraints $`IC`$ of the ACLP theory, and the basic model of our problem which is described in the program $`P`$ of the ACLP theory. A good such separation means that we can then incrementally refine this basic model to improve the quality of the solution without affecting its validity (which is always ensured by the integrity constraints in $`IC`$). As we refine our representation we include more domain specific information, exploiting any natural structures of the problem at hand, that can help to improve the computation of the solution.

At a final step of refinement of the problem representation we can develop the model in order to control the choice of abducible in the abductive reduction of the problem goals. This choice can be implemented to follow either some heuristics, priorities, or algorithm for optimality, to control both the computational efficiency and the quality of the solutions. We can then experiment with different design alternatives adopting different strategies to study how this would affect the quality of the solutions. In large scale problems the user can also experiment with different orders in which the integrity constraints are satisfied. Generally, the heuristic of trying first more specific integrity constraints gives better results.

An importnat characteristic of an ACLP representation of a problem is the flexibility it offers under new or dynamically changing requirements. Once we have one complete representation of the problem we can easily experiment with different requirements on the solution, by changing the integrity constraints which specialize the general model to the needs and preferences of a particular case. This can be done in a modular way by affecting only the integrity constraints to reflect the new requirements.

### Users and Useability

ACLP is a high-level knowledge representation environment which supports directly abduction. Its use requires some basic knowledge of logic programming, constraint logic programming (?) and abductive logic programming (?). As it is implemented on top of ECLiPSe knowledge of this particular CLP language can help. In some cases it is also useful to understand some of the basic search heuristics that ACLP and ECLiPSe underneath use in their computation (see below in section Evaluating the System). Details of how to use it with examples can be found at the web page of ACLP at: http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/aclp/.

The ACLP framework as a declarative problem solving paradigm can be used to address several different types of problems. Its developers have applied it initially to the problems of scheduling and planning (??) to test its computional effectiveness and its flexibility in problem representation. Also it has been used in an industrial application of crew-schedulling (?). Other groups have used ACLP for (i) optical music recognition (?) where ACLP was used to implement a system that can handle recognition under incomplete information, and (ii) resolving inconsistencies in software requirements (?) where (a simplified form of) ACLP was used to identify the causes of inconsistency and suggest changes that can restore consistency of the specification. Also the intelligent information integration work of (?) although it does not use ACLP in its implementation its approach to information integration is based on an ACLP representation.

Currently, we are considering two new applications of ACLP. One is that of the development of an information integration mediator for integrating information suitable for electronic commerce applications. The other application area concerns the further development of the problem of planning with emphasis on (i) the study of a systematic way to exploit domain specific information, and (ii) the problem of planning under incomplete information about the initial state of the problem.

We also mention that ACLP programs can be generated automatically from example data using a machine learning technique called abductive concept learning. For details of this method and a related system see http://www-lia.deis.unibo.it/Software/ACL/.

## Evaluating the System

At this initial stage of the development of the ACLP system the main aim of its evaluation is to understand the cost of the extra high-level expressivity layer that it gives (over for example CLP approaches) in comparison with the advantages of modularity that this may provide. The ACLP system has thus been evaluated mainly in two different directions: (i) computational efficiency, particularly in comparison with the underlying CLP language of ECLiPSe on which it is implemented, and (ii) flexibility under changes of the problem specification. The overall evaluation of an application under ACLP is a combination of these two factors together with the quality of the generated solutions under some optimization criteria when such criteria apply.

For example, the air-crew scheduling application in (?) produced solutions (for the small sized company of Cyprus Airways) that were judged to be of good quality, comparable to manually generated solutions by experts of many years on the particular problem, while at the same time it provided a flexible platform on which the company111 Unfortunately, the company has decided not to use the system for reasons that relate more to their policy of adopting a global solution to the full computerization of their operation with direct compatibility between their different systems. could easily experiment with changes in policy and preferences. Also the re-scheduling module of the system was judged to be of high-value both as a tool for adjusting the initially generated solution and for handling unexpected changes on the day of operation.

The computational effectiveness of the ACLP system depends on two factors: (a) the effectiveness of the reduction of the high-level ACLP representation to lower-level finite domain constraints and (b) the effeciency of the underlying constraint solver in propagating (or solving) these constraints. In fact, these two factors are interrelated as in many cases the reduction in (a) depends on the completeness of the propagation in (b). For some problems where these are not strongly related e.g. in the case of job-shop sheduling we can see that in comparison with (b) the overhead for the reduction in (a) is small. Information on these evaluation experimenents can be found at the ACLP web pages. Further results of comparison on problems where factors (a) and (b) are loosesly coupled can be found in the recent work of (?) where experiments with various types of systems, including ACLP, on the constraint satisfaction problems of the N-queens and graph colouring have been perfomed.

Another, but limited, comparison that we have carried out in order to test the effectiveness of the current ACLP implementation was a comparison with the use of Constraint Handling Rules (CHRs) (?) on the same problems of job-shop scheduling. On the whole the ACLP system was at least as effecient as CHR. It should be noted though that these comparions were carried out before recent developments on CHRs.

In problems where the search space of the reduction of the high-level specification depends strongly on the fast detection that the contraint store of finite domain constraints is becoming unsatisfiable, the overall computational efficiency of ACLP can be sensitive to the particular way of modeling the problem and the amount of specific domain knowledge it contains pertaining to the computation aspects of the problem. Such a problem is that of planning. As an example, table 1 shows the execution time (on a SUN Ultra-1 with 64Mb RAM) and the number of moves required for an indicative set of blocks world planning problems. The representation of the problem that was used was purely declarative with the exception that the towers of the final state were to be build in a horizontal fashion from the bottom up. The number of available positions on the table was restricted to be one third of the total number of blocks in order to make the problems more computationally demanding. These times are comparable with the execution times of solving such problems directly in ECLiPSe as reported in (?).

The flexibility of the ACLP system as a knowledge representation framework is tested by examining how easy it is for a given ACLP representation to be adapted under changes in the requirements of the original problem. There are two factors to measure here: (1) the programming effort required to adapt an existing solution to the new problem, and (2) the computational robustness of the system under such changes. Experiments in the domains of job-shop scheduling, air-crew scheduling and planning show that the extra programming effort in ACLP is considerably smaller than the corresponding effort when the problem is represented directly in ECLiPSe. In many cases, the effort required in ACLP is simply the addition of some new integrity constraints written directly from the declarative specification of the new requirements. The same experiments show that on the whole the computational performance of ACLP remains within the same order of magnitute under changes which affect the problem only locally in one part, e.g. extra requirements on the moves allowed for a particular ”small” subset of blocks in the problem of blocks world planning.

Another feature of the flexibility of ACLP is the ability to use it to recompute the solution for a given goal, under some new information about the particular instance of the problem, so that the new solution remains ”close” to the old solution, e.g. it contains a minimal number of changes from the old solution. Experiments to test this feature have been performed on the problems of job-shop and air-crew scheduling. Table 2 shows an example of the results. For each one of these problems a new requirement of some resource unavailability was added (shown below in the first column). The rescheduling results are shown in the third column of the table, which gives the time together with the number of changes needed on the existing solution in order to satisfy the new requirements. The fourth column displays the analogous information for the control experiment of re-executing the goal with the extra requirement represented in the program but now without any initial solution.

### Future Development

ACLP is a general purpose declarative programming framework. Hence its evaluation must combine different aspects of its performance. At this initial stage the emphasis in the development of the first prototype was on its declarativeness together with an acceptable computational performance.

The search that ACLP performs in constructing a solution needs further study for improvement. Currently, the system employs a few simple heuristics to help in its search. As ACLP is parametric on the underlying finite domain constraint solver improvements on its performance will improve the ACLP performance. More important though, is the interaction between the abductive reduction and the satisfaction of the finite domain constaints that it generates. This is the major aspect of the search space of ACLP. Hence one way to improve the ACLP search is to develop further the interface between the abductive reduction and the constraint solver so that the propagation of the domain constraints varies according to some heuristic criteria on the point of the search space where the request to the constraint solver is made.

In particular, while the abductive process is reducing the high-level goal and integrity constraints there are choice points where we can either introduce a new abducible hypothesis in the solution or instead backtrack higher up in the search space. In many cases, this decision can be made to depend on the satisfaction of some of the lower-level domain constraints that are generated by the abductive reduction. We can then evaluate the significance of their satisfaction (currently the system adopts a very simple form of evaluation) and depending on this guide the search to introduce or not a new hypotheses in the solution. This has to be combined with the general heuristic of abductive search of prefering to reuse hypotheses and delay the specialisation of (non-ground) hypotheses or the generation of new ones. In developing though a better search for ACLP it maybe necessary to restrict our attention to separate classes of problems e.g. to develop separately an ACLP planner from an ACLP system for diagnosis.

These considerations of improving the general purpose search strategy of the system is an important next stage of development. On the other hand, it is clear that the general improvement of efficiency that can be achieved is limited as we are aiming to use the system for computational hard problems. Hence another line of development is to provide more facilities for problem specific information to be incorporated in the representation of the problem whose exploitation can improve the performance of the system on the particular problem at hand. This problem specific information could include information to directly control the search of the system on the particular problem in the same spirit of recent developments for controlling models in constraint programming (?).


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# Fredholm methods for billiard eigenfunctions in the coherent state representation

## I Introduction

The precise test of semiclassical approximations in the presence of chaos is of grest interest to establish the limits of applicability of periodic orbit theory and its resummations. This test can be done in model systems both on approximations to the spectrum or to the stationary states. For the calculation of the spectrum the most efficient tool in this respect seems to be the spectral determinant  and several calculations  have demonstrated that, given enough periodic orbits, the spectrum can be accurately represented semiclassically. However, a more sensitive test - and still a great challenge - is the semiclassical representation of single eigenfunctions. This includes the study of the scar phenomena  and the eventual deviations from uniformity of eigenfunctions in accordance to the Berry-Voros hypothesis  and Schnirelman’s theorem .

Just as for spectral problems, the use of Fredholm methods allows for the most efficient encoding of classical information in the calculation for single eigenfunctions . In this paper we review these methods and apply them to the calculation of Husimi distributions of stadium eigenfunctions.

This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II we review the Fredholm method for billiard eigenfunctions. Fredholm theory allows us to find the solution to certain type of integral or operator equations . For billiards these methods can be applied to the boundary integral equation. In Sec. III we make the semiclassical approximation that is based on the approximation of the traces and powers of the propagator as sums over the periodic points of the underlying classical system. The propagator itself is taken as Bogomolny’s $`𝐓`$ operator . We choose the coherent state representation and obtain an expression for the semiclassical Husimi representation of the eigenfunctions in terms of classical invariants: periodic points, their monodromy matrices and Maslov indeces. In Sec. IV we apply this scheme for the stadium billiard. Our conclusions and perspectives are presented in Sec. V.

## II Fredholm formulae for eigenfunctions

Fredholm theory gives the solution to a certain class of integral equations, which can also be written as operator equations . A Fredholm integral equation of second type is

$`\chi (q)=\chi _0(q)+\lambda {\displaystyle 𝑑q^{}𝐓(q^{},q)\chi (q^{})}.`$ (1)
All the functions are defined in a finite domain. If the known functions $`\chi _0(q)`$ and $`𝐓(q^{},q)`$ are well behaved, the Fredholm alternative holds: there is a unique solution $`\chi `$ with the same analytic properties or the homogeneous equation ($`\chi _0=0`$) has a solution. There is a set of complex parameters $`\lambda _i`$ for which the solution is not unique. In operator notation, the inverse of $`(1\lambda 𝐓)`$ exists if $`\lambda \lambda _i`$. In this case, this inverse can be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1\lambda 𝐓}}={\displaystyle \frac{𝐌(\lambda )}{D(\lambda )}},`$ (2)
where the operator $`𝐌(\lambda )`$ and the function $`D(\lambda )`$ are series in $`\lambda `$. If $`𝐓`$ is a compact operator, $`D(\lambda )`$ and $`𝐌(\lambda )`$ are entire in $`\lambda `$ and, thus, absolutely convergent. The explicit form for the series expansion in terms of powers of $`𝐓`$ is given below. In what follows we apply this general theory assuming $`𝐓`$ to be unitary and of finite dimension $`N`$. Both assumptions are justified in the semiclassical limit for the quantization of billiards .

### A Secular equation

The $`k`$’s eigenvalues are given by the secular equation $`P(k)=\text{det}(1𝐓(k))=0`$. We can expand this determinant as

$`P(k)={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}}\beta _n(k),`$ (3)
where the coefficients $`\beta _n(k)`$ are related to the traces of $`𝐓(k)`$, $`b_n(k)\text{tr}𝐓^n(k)`$, through

$`\beta _n(k)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\beta _{nj}(k)b_j(k).`$ (4)
Thus, knowledge of the traces up to a certain $`n_{max}`$ implies the knowledge of the coefficients $`\beta _n`$ up to the same $`n_{max}`$.

If $`𝐓(k)`$ is unitary, $`P(k)`$ is self reversive, meaning that its coefficients satisfy

$`\beta _{Nj}(k)=(1)^N\overline{\beta }_j(k)\text{det}𝐓(k).`$ (5)
This condition alone forces the eigenvalues of $`𝐓`$ at fixed $`k`$ to be symmetric with respect to the unit circle: if $`\lambda `$ is an eigenvalue, then $`1/\overline{\lambda }`$ is an eigenvalue too. Of course, if $`𝐓`$ is unitary, then this condition is automatically satisfied but we can use it in our semiclassical approach to partially restore unitarity.

The contributions from coefficients $`\beta _i`$ with $`i>[(N+1)/2]`$ can be expressed in terms of coefficients $`\beta _i`$ with $`i[(N+1)/2]`$. ($`[x]`$ is the integer part of $`x`$.) So, if $`N`$ is even:

$`P(k)=\eta (k)+det𝐓\overline{\eta }(k),`$ (6)
$`\eta (k)={\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{N/21}{}}}\beta _j(k)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta _{N/2},det𝐓={\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{N/2}}{\overline{\beta }_{N/2}}}.`$ (7)
If $`N`$ is odd:

$`P(k)=\eta (k)det𝐓\overline{\eta }(k),`$ (8)
$`\eta (k)={\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{(N1)/2}{}}}\beta _j(k),det𝐓={\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{(N+1)/2}}{\overline{\beta }_{(N1)/2}}}.`$ (9)
As a consequence of the imposition of this symmetry on the operator $`𝐓`$ we obtain two advantages: only traces up to half the Heisenberg time $`t_H=N`$ are needed and the eigenvalues are constrained to lie on the unit circle or in symmetric pairs.

These formulae relate $`P(k)`$ with the traces of powers of $`𝐓(k)`$ which, in turn are related semiclassically to periodic orbits and to the smoothed density of states . They have been tested extensively for the hyperbola billiard by Keating and Sieber .

### B Green function

To extend these methods to the calculation of eigenfunctions, we define a generalized Green function $`𝐆(k)`$:

$`𝐆(k)={\displaystyle \frac{𝐓(k)}{1𝐓(k)}}.`$ (10)
This operator has poles at the billiard eigenvalues $`k=k_\nu `$ and its residues are the projectors onto the corresponding eigenfunctions. It has a Fredholm expression as

$`𝐆(k)={\displaystyle \frac{𝐓(k)𝐂^t(1𝐓(k))}{P(k)}},`$ (11)
where $`𝐂^𝐭(\mathrm{𝟏}𝐓(𝐤))`$ is the transpose of the cofactor matrix of $`1𝐓(k)`$ and, as in Eq. (2), has an expansion in powers of $`𝐓(k)`$.

It is then convenient to define a normalized Green operator as

$`𝐠(k)={\displaystyle \frac{𝐆(k)}{\text{tr}(𝐆(k))}},`$ (12)
where the singularities in the denominator have been eliminated. The normalized Green operator has the property $`𝐠(k_\nu )=|\psi _\nu \psi _\nu |`$, where $`|\psi _\nu `$ is the eigenvector corresponding to eigenvalue $`k_\nu `$. Then, we can write $`𝐠(k)`$ in the following way:

$`𝐠(k)={\displaystyle \frac{𝐓(k)C^t(1𝐓(k))}{\text{tr}(𝐓(k)C^t(1𝐓(k))).}}`$ (13)
As the cofactor matrix can be expanded in powers of the propagator and as the propagator itself is unitary we write the normalized Green operator in terms of the powers of the propagator and their traces up to $`N/2`$ (if $`N`$ is even):

$`𝐠(k)={\displaystyle \frac{\underset{i=0}{\overset{\frac{N}{2}1}{}}c_i(k)𝐓^{i+1}(k)\text{det}𝐓(k)\underset{i=0}{\overset{\frac{N}{2}1}{}}\overline{c}_i(k)𝐓^i(k)}{_{i=0}^{\frac{N}{2}1}c_i(k)\text{tr}(𝐓^{i+1}(k))\text{det}𝐓(k)_{i=0}^{\frac{N}{2}1}\overline{c}_i(k)\text{tr}(𝐓^i(k))}},`$ (14)
where the coefficients $`c_i(k)`$ are given by

$`c_i(k)={\displaystyle \underset{n=i}{\overset{\frac{N}{2}1}{}}}\beta _{ni}(k).`$ (15)
An analogous formula can be derived in case $`N`$ is odd.

The coefficients $`c_i(k)`$ are dependent on the traces of $`𝐓^n`$ through Eqs. (4) and (15) and thus are independent of the chosen representation. On the other hand, the expression for the powers of the propagator will depend on the representation chosen for the calculation of the eigenfunctions. If the coordinate representation $`|q`$ is chosen, Eq. (14) relates the probability density $`|\varphi _\nu (q)|^2`$ to the diagonal powers of the propagator $`q|𝐓^n(k)|q`$. If the Weyl representation is chosen, then Eq. (14) gives the Wigner distribution of $`|\varphi _\nu `$ in terms of the Weyl propagator . Here we choose the coherent state representation to find the equivalent Husimi distribution.

We remark that Eq. (14) is a very compact and representation independent derivation of formulae that were previously very laboriously derived for the Wigner case. It prepares in an optimal way the grounds for the semiclassical approximation because its ingredients are all dependent on classical elements, namely periodic orbits, phase space volume and generating function.

Using the fact that at $`k=k_\nu `$ the normalized Green function is the projector onto the corresponding eigenstate, we can obtain the Husimi distribution as

$`_{\psi _\nu }(z,\overline{z})={\displaystyle \frac{z|𝐠(k_\nu )|z}{z|z}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{z|z}}{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{i=0}{\overset{\frac{N}{2}1}{}}c_i(k)z|𝐓^{i+1}(k)|z\text{det}𝐓(k)\underset{i=0}{\overset{\frac{N}{2}1}{}}\overline{c}_i(k)z|𝐓^i(k)|z}{_{i=0}^{\frac{N}{2}1}c_i(k)\text{tr}(𝐓^{i+1}(k))\text{det}𝐓(k)_{i=0}^{\frac{N}{2}1}\overline{c}_i(k)\text{tr}(𝐓^i(k))}}.`$ (16)
This scheme was successfuly applied in simple quantum maps .

## III Semiclassical approximation

Green’s theorem allows us to reduce the Schrödinger equation for the billiard with Dirichlet boundary conditions to the following linear homogeneous equation for the normal derivative on the border $`\varphi (s)`$

$`\varphi (s)=2{\displaystyle 𝑑s^{}\varphi (s^{})𝐊(s,s^{};k)},`$ (17)
where the kernel is

$`𝐊(s,s^{};k)={\displaystyle \frac{ik}{2}}\mathrm{cos}\psi (s)H_1^{(1)}(k|𝐫(s)𝐫^{}(s^{})|),`$ (18)
with $`k`$ the wave number, $`\psi (s)`$ the angle between the normal at $`s`$ and the line that connects $`𝐫(s)`$ with $`𝐫^{}(s^{})`$ (see Fig. 1) and $`H_1^{(1)}`$ the Hankel function of first type and order one.

We introduce the wave function $`\mu (s)`$

$`\varphi (p)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{ik}}\sqrt{1p^2}\mu (p),`$ (19)
with $`\varphi (p)`$ and $`\mu (p)`$ the momentum representations of $`\varphi (s)`$ and $`\mu (s)`$. This transformation makes the kernel symmetric and turns Eq. (17) to

$`\mu (s)={\displaystyle 𝐓(s^{},s;k)\mu (s^{})𝑑s^{}}.`$ (20)
The semiclassical theory of the kernel $`𝐓(s^{},s;k)`$  is based on two fundamental properties: $`𝐓`$ is semiclassically unitary and has an effective dimension $`N(k)=Lk/\pi `$, where $`L`$ is the length of the billiard. Moreover, the kernel is given by the generating function of the classical Birkhoff map (see Eq.(21)). These properties have been extensively tested  and will be assumed in what follows.

Thus, we make the semiclassical approximation by taking $`𝐓`$ as Bogomolny’s operator (21) and by evaluating all integrals by stationary phase approximation. The $`𝐓`$ operator for convex billiards in the plane, taking its border as Poincaré section and using Birkhoff coordinates is

$`𝐓(s^{},s;k)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi i}}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{^2l(s^{},s)}{ss^{}}}\right|^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(ikl(s^{},s)i{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\nu \right),`$ (21)
where the bounce map generated by $`l(s^{}s)`$, the arc length between $`s`$ and $`s^{}`$; $`\nu `$ is the Maslov index. The quantization condition is $`\text{det}(1𝐓(k))=0`$.

In the semiclassical theory for the spectral determinant

$`P(k)=\text{det}(1𝐓(k))`$ (22)
the approximate unitarity of $`𝐓`$ can be used efficiently to reduce the number of periodic orbits needed for the computation of the spectrum. Similar manipulations of the Fredholm formulae allow for the same reduction in the semiclassical calculation of single eigenfunctions of the billiard. We write down a formula giving the projector on single eigenfucntions as a finite sum involving powers of the map $`𝐓`$ and its traces.

### A Semiclassical traces and determinant

First we need the traces. It is a well known fact that they adopt the following semiclassical expression :

$`[b_n]_{scl}={\displaystyle \underset{PO,n=n_pr}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_p}{|\text{det}(IM_p^r)|^{(1/2)}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(ir(kl_p\nu _p\pi /2)\right),`$ (23)
where the sum goes over all the primitive PO’s of the billiard with period $`n_p`$, which must be a divisor of $`n`$, Maslov index $`\nu _p`$, length $`l_p`$ and monodromy matrix $`M_p`$. The Maslov index can be interpreted geometrically: $`\pi \nu _p`$ is the angle swept by the unstable manifold of $`M_p`$ along the PO.

The determinant of $`𝐓`$ can be obtained as

$`[\text{det}𝐓(k)]_{scl}=(1)^N\text{exp}(2\pi i𝒩(k)),`$ (24)
where $`𝒩(k)`$, the number of states between 0 y $`k`$, is

$`𝒩(k)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}𝒜k^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}Lk,`$ (25)
with $`𝒜`$ the area of billiard and $`L`$ its length.

These are the semiclassical ingredients needed for the calculation of the spectrum and of the coefficients $`c_i(k)`$.

### B Semiclassical propagator in coherent state representation

We first obtain the coherent state representation for one iteration of the bounce map:

$`z^{}|𝐓|z={\displaystyle 𝑑s𝑑s^{}z^{}|s^{}s^{}|𝐓|ss|z}.`$ (26)
That is to say:

$`z^{}|𝐓|z=\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{\pi \sigma ^2}}\right)^{1/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi i}}\right)^{1/2}\text{e}^{(i\pi \nu /2)}\times {\displaystyle 𝑑s𝑑s^{}\left|\frac{^2l}{ss^{}}\right|^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(ik\mathrm{\Phi }(s^{},s)\right)}`$ (27)
where

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(s^{},s)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}z^2+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}z^2{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\sigma ^2}}s^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{\sigma }}z^{}s^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\sigma ^2}}s^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{\sigma }}\overline{z}s+l(s^{},s),`$ (28)
and $`z^{}=(q^{}/\sigma i\sigma p^{})/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`z=(q/\sigma i\sigma p)/\sqrt{2}`$. The most important contributions come from those points $`s^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ that make stationary the phase $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{s}}(s^{},s^{})={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sigma ^2}}s^{}{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{\sigma }}\overline{z}+{\displaystyle \frac{l}{s}}(s^{},s^{})=0`$ (29)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{s^{}}}(s^{},s^{})={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sigma ^2}}s^{}{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{\sigma }}z^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{l}{s^{}}}(s^{},s^{})=0.`$ (30)
The solution to (29) satisfying the reality conditions is

$`s^{}=q{\displaystyle \frac{l}{s}}(s^{},s^{})=p`$ (31)
$`s^{}=q^{}{\displaystyle \frac{l}{s^{}}}(s^{},s^{})=p^{}.`$ (32)
This is a classical trajectory from $`(q,p)`$ to $`(q^{},p^{})`$. Thus, the matrix element $`z^{}|𝐓|z`$ will be non zero only if $`z`$ and $`z^{}`$ are connected by the classical dynamics. Let us call these points $`z_c`$ and $`z_c^{}`$ and let us calculate the matrix element to next order in their neighbourhoods, $`z_c^{}+\delta z^{}|𝐓|z_c+\delta z`$. To this effect we expand $`\mathrm{\Phi }(s^{},s)`$ in Eq. (27) to second order and, after some algebra:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\delta s^{},\delta s)l(q_c^{},q_c)+\left[i\delta z^{}\overline{z}_{}^{}{}_{c}{}^{}i\delta \overline{z}z_c{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{z}_cz_c{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{z}_{}^{}{}_{c}{}^{}z_c^{}\right]+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}(\overline{z}_c^{}_{}{}^{}2z_c^{}_{}{}^{}2\overline{z}_c^2+z_c^2)\right]+`$ (33)
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\delta z^2+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\sigma ^2}}\delta s^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{\sigma }}\delta z^{}\delta s^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\delta \overline{z}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\sigma ^2}}\delta s^2{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{2}}{\sigma }}\delta \overline{z}\delta s+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{^2l}{s^2}}\delta s^2+2{\displaystyle \frac{^2l}{s^{}s}}\delta s^{}\delta s+{\displaystyle \frac{^2l}{s^2}}\delta s^2\right)\right],`$ (34)
where $`\delta s=sq_c`$ and $`\delta s^{}=s^{}q_c^{}`$. We change to new integration variables $`\delta s`$ and $`\delta s^{}`$ and obtain:

$`z_c^{}+\delta z^{}|𝐓|z_c+\delta z\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{\pi \sigma ^2}}\right)^{1/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\pi i}}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(i\pi \nu /2)\times {\displaystyle 𝑑\delta s𝑑\delta s^{}\left|\frac{^2l}{ss^{}}\right|^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(ik\mathrm{\Phi }(\delta s^{},\delta s)\right)}`$ (35)
We now insert Eq. (33) in Eq. (35). All terms are constant with respect to integration except the last one in square brackets. The resulting integral is the coherent state representation, with respect to $`|\delta z`$, of the linearized map, whose generating function is quadratic, which we have introduced in Ec. (A19):

$`\delta z^{}|𝐓|\delta z={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\overline{s}_c}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\overline{s}_c}}\left(\overline{r}_c\delta z^2+2\delta z^{}\delta \overline{z}+r_c\delta \overline{z}^2\right)\right],`$ (36)
where $`r_c`$ y $`s_c`$ are the matrix elements of the linearized map in complex coordinates. Finally we arrive at:

$`z_c^{}+\delta z^{}|𝐓|z_c+\delta z\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k}{4}}(\overline{z}_c^{}_{}{}^{}2z_c^{}_{}{}^{}2\overline{z}_c^2+z_c^2)\right]\times `$ (37)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left[k\left(\delta z^{}\overline{z}_{}^{}{}_{c}{}^{}+\delta \overline{z}z_c+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{z}_cz_c+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{z}_{}^{}{}_{c}{}^{}z_c^{}\right)\right]\times \mathrm{exp}\left(ikli{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\nu \right)\delta z^{}|𝐓|\delta z.`$ (38)
This result lets us evaluate the matrix element we were looking for, $`z|𝐓^n|z/z|z`$, that will be a sum of contributions of periodic points $`z_{pp}`$ of period $`n`$ in the semiclassical limit:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{z|𝐓^n|z}{z|z}}{\displaystyle \underset{pp,n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{z_{pp}+\delta z|𝐓^n|z_{pp}+\delta z}{z_{pp}+\delta z|z_{pp}+\delta z}}.`$ (39)
To obtain the composition $`z_{pp}+\delta z|𝐓^n|z_{pp}+\delta z`$ we use the expression (37) and the composition rule of Eq. (A20). Then

$`{\displaystyle \frac{z|𝐓^n|z}{z|z}}{\displaystyle \underset{pp,n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\overline{s}_{pp}}}}\lambda _{pp}\mathrm{exp}(ikl_{pp}i{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\nu _{pp})\times \mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\overline{s}_{pp}}}\left(\overline{r}_{pp}\delta z^2+2\delta z\delta \overline{z}+r_{pp}\delta \overline{z}^2\right)k\delta z\delta \overline{z}\right],`$ (40)
where $`\lambda _{pp}`$ can be calculated by Eq. (A21), $`\nu _{pp}=n`$ (because of the Dirichlet boundary conditions) and $`l_{pp}`$ is the length of the PO starting from $`(q_{pp},p_{pp})`$. As we can see, the matrix element behaves as a gaussian in the vecinities of the periodic point. This allows us to write the Husimi representation of the $`n`$-th power of the propagator as a sum of contributions from periodic points of period $`n`$. Each term of the sum is a gaussian packet in phase space whose parameters are related to the monodromy matrix in complex coordinates. A PO composed by $`n`$ points will give $`n`$ different contributions to this sum, due to the fact that the monodromy matrices at each point differ. However, the invariant properties of these matrices are the same and the usual Gutzwiller-Tabor trace formula  can be recovered by integration. Of course, a periodic point of period $`n`$ will contribute also to the $`rn`$ ($`r`$ natural) powers of the propagator.

We should remark at this point that the different semiclassical representations of the propagator in terms od the corresponding generating function are only semiclassically equivalent and thus can give different results at finite $`N`$. This is not true for the calculation fo the spectral determinant, whose semiclassical expression in terms of periodic orbits is the same in all representations. It is because of this that the different ways of computing eigenfunctions are not equivalent. For the calculation of $`|\varphi _\nu (s)|^2`$ the closed (but not necesarily periodic) orbits are needed . For the Wignaer function calculation only periodic points are needed but each contribution is extended in phase space. In the present formalism we will obtain the Husimi distributions of eigenfunctions in terms of deformed localized gaussians centered in the periodic points, constructed solely in terms of classical information.

Symmetries

Our system, the stadium billiard, has two discrete spatial symmetries: $`R_x`$ and $`R_y`$, the two reflections with respect of the coordinate axes. These spatial symmetries in the domain reflect in the border and, thus, in the classical and quantum map on it. Their action on the Birkhoff coordinates of phase space $`(q,p)`$ is

$`R_x(q,p)(Lq,p),R_y(q,p)({\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}q,p),R_xR_y(q,p)({\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}+q,+p).`$ (41)
In order to have coherent states on the border with correct symmetries we need to project them using $`𝐑_x`$ and $`𝐑_y`$, the unitary representations of the symmetries $`𝐑_x|x,y=|x,y`$ and $`𝐑_y|x,y=|x,y`$. Then we define

$`|z_{\sigma _x\sigma _y}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\sigma _x𝐑_x}{2}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\sigma _y𝐑_y}{2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{|z}{\sqrt{z|z}}},`$ (42)
where $`\sigma _x,\sigma _y=\pm 1`$ and $`𝐑_x`$ and $`𝐑_y`$ move the center of the coherent state according to Ec. (41).

In this way, the diagonal matrix elements of the propagator in symmetrized coherent state representation are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z|z}}z|𝐓\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\sigma _x𝐑_x}{2}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\sigma _y𝐑_y}{2}}\right)|z={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4z|z}}(z|𝐓|z+\sigma _xz|\mathrm{𝐓𝐑}_x|z+\sigma _yz|\mathrm{𝐓𝐑}_y|z+\sigma _x\sigma _yz|\mathrm{𝐓𝐑}_x𝐑_y|z).`$ (43)
We have already calculated $`z|𝐓^n|z`$. We still have to calculate the other three contributions, $`z|𝐓^n𝐑_x|z`$, $`z|𝐓^n𝐑_y|z`$ and $`z|𝐓^n𝐑_x𝐑_y|z`$. We can conclude using the results we have already obtained that each of them will be a sum of gaussians centered in those points $`z`$ that the dynamics connects with their symmetric partners, $`R_xz`$, $`R_yz`$, $`R_xR_yz`$, respectively. These points belong to POs whose periods are $`2n`$ which are symmetric under the operations $`R_x`$, $`R_y`$, $`R_xR_y`$, respectively. The increment $`R\delta z`$ with respect to $`Rz`$ ($`RR_x,R_y,R_xR_y`$) is related to the increment $`\delta z`$ with respect to $`z`$ through:

$`R\delta z=t_R\delta z,t_R=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\text{ if }R=R_x\hfill & \\ 1\text{ if }R=R_y\hfill & \\ 1\text{ if }R=R_xR_y.\hfill & \end{array}`$ (47)
Thus we arrive at:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{z|𝐓^n𝐑|z}{z|z}}{\displaystyle \underset{pp,2n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\overline{s}_{pp}}}}\lambda _{pp}\mathrm{exp}(ikl_{pp}i{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}\nu _{pp})\times \mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\overline{s}_{pp}}}\left(\overline{r}_{pp}\delta z^2+2t_R\delta z\delta \overline{z}+r_{pp}\delta \overline{z}^2\right)k\delta z\delta \overline{z}\right],`$ (48)
where the sum goes over the periodic points of period $`2n`$ that belong to POs symmetric under $`R`$. The quantities $`s_{pp}`$, $`r_{pp}`$, $`l_{pp}`$, $`\nu _{pp}`$ and $`\lambda _{pp}`$ are calculated along the trajectory that connect $`z`$ to $`Rz`$, i.e., half PO.

## IV Semiclassical eigenfunctions for the stadium

We use the semiclassical approach we introduced above for the stadium billiard. We choose odd-odd symmetries ($`\sigma _x=\sigma _y=1`$) and $`\sigma =2`$. We have periodic points with desymmetrized period up to 8 (around 800). We have used the symbolic dynamics developed by Biham and Kvale  to obtain them. The wave number $`k`$ is related to the maximum period used in the expansion (16) by $`P(k)=\frac{L}{2\pi }k0.4k`$. In this way we can obtain semiclassical approximations of eigenfunctions of wave number $`k20`$.

In Fig. 2 we show the phase space representations of the first six powers of Bogomolny’s $`𝐓`$ operator for $`k=20`$; in Fig. 3, the semiclassical approximations. We see that the exact representations show global maxima in the bouncing ball region that cannot be reproduced semiclassically for the lowest powers. However, the overall semiclassical behaviour is very close to that of the exact representations. (Because of the symmetries we chose, we have no semiclassical approximation to the first power of the operator because the contribution of the only periodic point of period 1 is zero.)

We select two energy ranges: $`k[19.1,20.0]`$ and $`k[20.5,21.3]`$. There are 4 eigenenergies in each of these ranges. We show the absolute value of the secular determinant, $`|P(k)|`$, for each of them in Figs. 4 and 6. The full line is the semiclassical approximation, the dashed line is the secular determinant for Bogomolny’s operator. The vertical lines are the exact quantum $`k`$ eigenvalues calculated by the scaling method . We see a good approximation when we use the periodic point expansion. The agreement shows that in this region the spectrum is well represented semiclassically. (The discontinuities come from the change in dimension of the operator).

To keep the method consistent we evaluated the semiclassical Husimi expansion in those values of $`k`$ that minimize the semiclassical secular determinant. We see in Figs. 5 and 7 the exact eigenfunctions (first column) and their corresponding semiclassical Husimi representations (second column) obtained as the real part of Eq. (16). The global behaviour is well reproduced; however, the finer details are hard to mimic. The bouncing ball region is problematic: in some functions (e.g., $`k=21.16`$) some probability leaks to this region. Probably POs with longer periods that approximate the bouncing ball orbits could make a better picture for this region.

One of the advantages of formula (14) for the projector is that it has no singularities between eigenvalues. It is possible to study continualy its behaviour as a function of $`k`$ in order to see its sensitivity to changes in $`k`$. Some properties of the exact distribution as a function of $`k`$ are:

* The distribution is positive at the eigenvalues $`k_n`$.
* The distribution has $`N(k)`$ zeros at eigenvalues $`k_n`$.

These two properties follow from the fact that $`_{\psi _\nu }(z,\overline{z})`$ is the modulus of an analytic function. The distributions between eigenvalues can become negative. In particular, it can be shown that at the value of $`k`$ that maximizes $`P(k)`$, the distribution is constant. This properties can be used to control the semiclassical approximations.

In Figs. 8 and 9 we show the behaviour of the distribution $`z|𝐠(k)|z/z|z`$ between the semiclassical eigenvalues $`k=19.18`$ and $`k=19.38`$. When $`k=19.18`$ the distribution is positive and has well defined minima that approach zero. As we move away from the eigenvalue, the distribution changes smoothly. Initialy it moves away from the plane $`g=0`$ in the positive direction, then it comes back and turns negative. During this “evolution” it flattens visibly and we can’t discern its features. At $`k=19.32`$, aproximately the maximum of the secular determinant, see Fig. 4, the distribution is constant. At the semiclassical eigenvalue $`k=19.38`$ the distribution is positive again with well defined minima.

We can see from Figs. 5 and 7 that the semiclassical approximation is relatively good. It is not trivial to obtain a positive defined distribution with $`N`$ zeroes adding several hundreds of gaussians, each with its phase and deformation.

## V Conclusions

Using Fredholm theory we have given a very compact and representation independent derivation of the projector on a single eigenfunction for unitary quantum maps. Expressing the projector in the coherent state basis we wrote a semiclassical expression for the Husimi distributions of the billiard’s eigenfunctions. Each periodic point contributes with a gaussian centered in it whose parameters are calculated only with classical information. We should not underestimate the difficulties and complexities inherent to this method. Hundreds of gaussian contributions have to conspire to make a positive definite distribution with $`N`$ that approximate the quantum Husimi distributions.

The projector (14) can be represented in coordinate space. We obtain $`q|\psi \psi |q`$, whose semiclassical approximation can be directly compared to the probability density in the section. This representation has an additional difficulty, since the semiclassical approximation is written as a sum over closed trajectories, periodic or not, in configuration space. Those that are not periodic are more in number and more difficult to find. Anyway, we can apply our scheme for Bogomolny’s $`𝐓(q^{},q)`$ operator and compare the results with the exact quantum calculation. In Fig. 10 we see that the approximation is excelent at this level.

The maximum period $`P`$ in the expansions is related to the energy in the way $`P0.4k`$. Due to the exponential proliferation of orbits in chaotic systems, the method cannot be applied for arbitrarily high energies. The measure of this proliferation is the topologic entropy $`W`$ which relates the number $`N_P`$ of POs of a given period $`P`$ with the period itself, $`N_P=\mathrm{exp}(WP)`$ . For the stadium, $`W0.94`$. Then, for $`k100`$ we need POs of periods up to $`P=40`$, whose number is $`N_P\mathrm{exp}(0.94\times 40)10^{17}`$!

The Fredholm method we developed is a first step and shows that the eigenfunctions can be described as expansions in terms of the periodic points of the underlying classical system. It eliminates the divergencies associated that the schemes based on smoothings in energy have. However, the exponential divergence of periodic orbits poses a serious practical problem, as discussed in the previous paragraph. This method can only become practical for large $`k_\nu `$ if some way of selecting a few “important” orbits at each value of $`k`$ can be developed. Some results in this direction have been obtained by Vergini and Carlo .

## A Complex phase space

We introduce the following symplectic transformation $`Z`$, depending upon parameter $`\sigma `$, acting on a point of classical phase space $`(q,p)`$ :

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}z\hfill & \\ p_z\hfill & \end{array}\right)=Z\left(\begin{array}{cc}q\hfill & \\ p\hfill & \end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1/\sqrt{2}\sigma \hfill & i\sigma /\sqrt{2}& & \\ i/\sqrt{2}\sigma \hfill & \sigma /\sqrt{2}& & \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}q\hfill & \\ p\hfill & \end{array}\right).`$ (A9)
Imposing reality conditions on the inverse transformation we see that $`\overline{z}=ip_z`$. A linear transformation $`M=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a\hfill & b& & \\ c\hfill & d& & \end{array}\right)`$ in $`(q,p)`$ phase space has a representation $`M_z`$ in $`(z,p_z)`$ phase space by conjugation with $`Z`$

$`M_z=ZMZ^1=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\overline{s}\hfill & ir& & \\ i\overline{r}\hfill & s& & \end{array}\right)\text{with}\{\begin{array}{cc}s=\frac{1}{2}\left[(a+d)i\left(\frac{b}{\sigma ^2}\sigma ^2c\right)\right]\hfill & \\ r=\frac{1}{2}\left[(da)+i\left(\frac{b}{\sigma ^2}+\sigma ^2c\right)\right]\hfill & \end{array}.`$ (A14)
This $`(z,p_z)`$ phase space allows a passage to quantum mechanics. This is done in a Hilbert Bargmann space by introducing operators $`𝐳`$ and $`𝐩_𝐳`$ that satisfy the conmutator relations

$`[𝐳,𝐩_𝐳]=i\mathrm{},[𝐳,𝐳]=[𝐩_𝐳,𝐩_𝐳]=0.`$ (A15)
Any vector $`|\psi `$ in Hilbert space can be represented in this new space as $`z|\psi =𝑑qz|qq|\psi `$, where the coherent states are $`z|q=(1/(\pi \mathrm{}\sigma ^2))^{1/4}\mathrm{exp}\left((1/\mathrm{})\left(z^2/2+q^2/(2\sigma ^2)\sqrt{2}zq/\sigma \right)\right)`$. The scalar product is $`\psi _1|\psi _2=\overline{\psi }_1(z)\psi _2(z)𝑑\mu (z)`$ with norm $`d\mu (z)=\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left(z\overline{z}/\mathrm{}\right)d\text{Re}(z)d\text{Im}(z)`$.

We now define the Husimi representation of a vector $`\psi `$ as

$`_\psi (z){\displaystyle \frac{|z|\psi |^2}{z|z}}.`$ (A16)
It is a real positive function for every $`z`$ in the complex plane.

The representation of a linear symplectic transformation $`M`$ in phase space in terms of a unitary operator of Hilbert Bargmann space is

$`M=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}a\hfill & b& & \\ c\hfill & d& & \end{array}\right)z^{}|𝐔(M)|z={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{|\overline{s}}|}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\text{arg}(\overline{s})\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2\overline{s}}}\left(\overline{r}z^2+2z^{}\overline{z}+r\overline{z}^2\right)\right].`$ (A19)
This representation is up to a phase  and its composition law is

$`{\displaystyle z^{}|𝐔(M_1)|zz|𝐔(M_2)|z^{\prime \prime }𝑑\mu (z)}=\lambda (M_1,M_2,M_1M_2)z^{}|𝐔(M_1M_2)|z^{\prime \prime },`$ (A20)
with

$`\lambda (M_1,M_2,M_1M_2)=\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\left(\text{arg}(\overline{s})\text{arg}(\overline{s}_1)\text{arg}(\overline{s}_2)\text{arg}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{s}}{\overline{s}_1\overline{s}_2}}\right)\right)\right]=\pm 1.`$ (A21)
The accumulated phase due to succesive transformations leads to the Maslov index of the trajectory.

In case the phase space shows periodicity in coordinate or momentum, we have to periodize the coherent states as in .

## Figure captions