Formal oscillatory integrals and deformation quantization

TL;DR

This paper formalizes the concept of oscillatory integrals as functionals near critical points, establishing a correspondence between kernels and formal oscillatory integrals, and applies this to star products on pseudo-Kähler manifolds.

Contribution

It introduces a formal framework for oscillatory integrals, relates kernels to FOIs, and identifies kernels for polydifferential operators related to star products.

Findings

Established a correspondence between formal oscillatory integral kernels and FOIs.

Identified formal oscillatory kernels for polydifferential operators on pseudo-Kähler manifolds.

Provided a axiomatic characterization of FOIs in the context of deformation quantization.

Abstract

Following [14] and [12], we formalize the notion of an oscillatory integral interpreted as a functional on the amplitudes supported near a fixed critical point $x_0$ of the phase function with zero critical value. We relate to an oscillatory integral two objects, a formal oscillatory integral kernel and the full formal asymptotic expansion at $x_0$. The formal asymptotic expansion is a formal distribution supported at $x_0$ which is applied to the amplitude. In [12] this distribution itself is called a formal oscillatory integral (FOI). We establish a correspondence between the formal oscillatory integral kernels and the FOIs based upon a number of axiomatic properties of a FOI expressed in terms of its formal integral kernel. Then we consider a family of polydifferential operators related to a star product with separation of variables on a pseudo-K\"ahler manifold. These operators evaluated at a point are FOIs. We completely identify their formal oscillatory kernels.