From Classical Periodic Orbits in Integrable $\pi$-Rational Billiards to Quantum Energy Spectrum

TL;DR

This paper reveals a precise relationship between classical periodic orbits and quantum energy spectra in integrable billiards, extending the analysis to certain 3D tetrahedral domains using geometric methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel geometric approach linking classical orbit lengths to quantum spectra and extends this to new 3D integrable tetrahedral billiards.

Findings

Exact correspondence between classical orbit amplitudes and quantum energies in 2D billiards.

Determination of energy spectra for two new 3D tetrahedral billiards.

Validation of analytical results through numerical comparison.

Abstract

In the present note, we uncover a remarkable connection between the length of periodic orbit of a classical particle enclosed in a class of 2-dimensional planar billiards and the energy of a quantum particle confined to move in an identical region with infinitely high potential wall on the boundary. We observe that the quantum energy spectrum of the particle is in exact one-to-one correspondence with the spectrum of the amplitude squares of the periodic orbits of a classical particle for the class of integrable billiards considered. We have established the results by geometric constructions and exploiting the method of reflective tiling and folding of classical trajectories. We have further extended the method to 3-dimensional billiards for which exact analytical results are scarcely available - exploiting the geometric construction, we determine the exact energy spectra of two new tetrahedral domains which we believe are integrable. We test the veracity of our results by comparing them with numerical results.