text:
# Coherent Communication of Classical Messages

## Abstract

We define coherent communication in terms of a simple primitive, show it is equivalent to the ability to send a classical message with a unitary or isometric operation, and use it to relate other resources in quantum information theory. Using coherent communication, we are able to generalize super-dense coding to prepare arbitrary quantum states instead of only classical messages. We also derive single-letter formulae for the classical and quantum capacities of a bipartite unitary gate assisted by an arbitrary fixed amount of entanglement per use.

Beyond qubits and cbits

The basic units of communication in quantum information theory are usually taken to be qubits and cbits, meaning one use of a noiseless quantum or classical channel respectively. Qubits and cbits can be converted to each other and to and from other quantum communication resources, but often only irreversibly. For example, one qubit can yield at most one cbit, but to obtain a qubit from cbits requires the additional resource of entanglement. By introducing a new resource, intermediate in power between a qubit and a cbit, we will show that many resource transformations can be modified to be reversible and thus more efficient.

If $`\{|x\}_{x=0,1}`$ is a basis for $`^2`$, then a qubit channel can be described as the isometry $`|x_A|x_B`$ and a cbit can be written as $`|x_A|x_B|x_E`$. Here $`A`$ is the sender Alice, $`B`$ is the receiver Bob and $`E`$ denotes an inaccessible environment, sometimes personified as a malicious Eve. Tracing out Eve yields the traditional definition of a cbit channel with the basis $`\{|x\}`$ considered the computational basis.

Define a coherent bit (or “cobit”) of communication as the ability to perform the map $`|x_A|x_A|x_B`$. Since Alice is free to copy or destroy her channel input, $`1\mathrm{qubit}1\mathrm{cobit}1\mathrm{cbit}`$, where $`XY`$ means that the resource $`X`$ can be used to simulate the resource $`Y`$. We will also write $`XY(\mathrm{c})`$ when $`X+ZY+Z`$ for some resource $`Z`$ used as a catalyst and $`XY(\mathrm{a})`$ when the conversion is asymptotic, by which we mean that $`X^nY^n`$ for $`n`$ sufficiently large.

In Prop. 1, we will see that coherent bits come from any method for sending bits using a coherent procedure (a unitary or isometry on the joint Alice-Bob Hilbert space); hence their name. From their definitions, we see that cobits can be thought of as cbits where Alice controls the environment, making them like classical channels with quantum feedback. Further connections between cobits and cbits will be seen later in this Letter, where we show that irreversible resource transformations are often equivalent to performing “1 cobit $``$ 1 cbit,” and in family  where several communication protocols are “made coherent” with the effect of replacing cbits with cobits.

In the first half of this paper we will describe how to obtain coherent bits and then how to use them, allowing us to exactly describe the power of cobits in terms of conventional resources. The purpose of this paper is thus not to define a new incomparable quantum resource, but rather to introduce a technique for relating and composing communication protocols. Then we will apply coherent communication to remote state preparationRSP . This will allow us to generalize super-dense coding and determine the classical and quantum capacities of unitary gates with an arbitrary amount of entanglement assistance.

Sources of coherent communication

Qubits and cbits arise naturally from noiseless and dephasing channels respectively, and can be obtained from any noisy channel by appropriate coding HSW ; Shor ; Dev ; Lloyd . Similarly, we will show both a natural primitive yielding coherent bits and a coding theorem that can generate coherent bits from a broad class of unitary operations.

The simplest way to send a coherent message is by modifying super-dense codingSDC . In SDC , Alice and Bob begin with the state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}_{x=0}^1|x_A|x_B`$, which we call an ebit. Alice encodes a two-bit message $`a_1a_2`$ by applying $`Z^{a_1}X^{a_2}`$ to her half of $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ and then sending it to Bob, who decodes by applying $`(HI)\text{cnot}`$ to the state, obtaining

$$(HI)\text{cnot}(Z^{a_1}X^{a_2}I)|\mathrm{\Phi }_2=|a_1|a_2$$

Now modify this protocol so that Alice starts with a quantum state $`|a_1a_2`$ and applies $`Z^{a_1}X^{a_2}`$ to her half of $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ conditioned on her quantum input. After she sends her qubit and Bob decodes, they will be left with the state $`|a_1a_2_A|a_1a_2_B`$. Thus,

$$1\mathrm{qubit}+1\mathrm{ebit}2\mathrm{cobits}$$
(1)
In fact, any unitary operation capable of classical communication is also capable of an equal amount of coherent communication, though in general this only holds asymptotically and for one-way communication.

###### Proposition 1

If $`U`$ is a bipartite unitary or isometry such that

$$U+e\mathrm{ebits}C\mathrm{cbits}(\mathrm{a})$$

then

$$U+e\mathrm{ebits}C\mathrm{cobits}(\mathrm{a}).$$

Here we consider $`U`$ a resource in the sense of BHLS , which considered the asymptotic capacity of nonlocal unitary operations to generate entanglement and to send cbits. By appropriate coding (as in BS ), we can reduce Proposition 1 to the following coherent analogue of Holevo-Schumacher-WestmorelandHSW  (HSW) coding.

###### Lemma 2 (coherent HSW)

Given a set of bipartite pure states $`𝒮=\{|\psi _x_{AB}\}_{x=1}^l`$, an isometry $`U_\psi `$ such that $`U_\psi |x_A=|x_A|\psi _x_{AB}`$, and an arbitrary probability distribution $`\{p_x\}`$ then

$$U_\psi \chi \mathrm{cobits}+E\mathrm{ebits}(\mathrm{a})$$

where $`E=_xp_xS(\mathrm{Tr}_A\psi _x)`$ and $`\chi =S\left(_xp_x\mathrm{Tr}_A\psi _x\right)E`$.

Proof One can showDev ; HSW  that for any $`\delta >0,ϵ>0`$ and every $`n`$ sufficiently large there exists a code $`𝒞𝒮^n`$ with $`|𝒞|=\mathrm{exp}(n(\chi \delta ))`$, a decoding POVM $`\{D_c\}_{c𝒞}`$ with error $`<ϵ`$ and a type $`q`$ with $`pq_1l/n`$ such that every codeword $`c:=c_1\mathrm{}c_n𝒞`$ has type $`q`$ (i.e. $`x,|\{c_j=x\}|=nq_x`$). By error $`<ϵ`$, we mean that for any $`c𝒞`$, $`\psi _c|(ID_c)|\psi _c>1ϵ`$.

Using Neumark’s theoremNeu , Bob can make his decoding POVM into a unitary operation $`U_D`$ defined by $`U_D|0|\varphi =_c|c\sqrt{D_c}|\varphi `$. Applying this to his half of a codeword $`|\psi _c:=|\psi _{c_1}\mathrm{}|\psi _{c_n}`$ will yield a state within $`ϵ`$ of $`|c`$$`|\psi _c`$, since measurements with nearly certain outcomes cause almost no disturbance.

The communication strategy begins by applying $`U_\psi `$ to $`|c_A`$ to obtain $`|c_A|\psi _c_{AB}`$. Bob then decodes unitarily with $`U_D`$ to yield a state within $`ϵ`$ of $`|c_A|c_B|\psi _c_{AB}`$. Since $`c`$ is of type $`q`$, Alice and Bob can coherently permute the states of $`|\psi _c`$ to obtain a state within $`ϵ`$ of $`|c_A|c_B|\psi _1_{AB}^{nq_1}\mathrm{}|\psi _l_{AB}^{nq_l}`$. Then they can apply entanglement concentrationBBPS  to $`|\psi _1_{AB}^{nq_1}\mathrm{}|\psi _l_{AB}^{nq_l}`$ to obtain $`nE`$ ebits without disturbing the coherent message $`|c_A|c_B`$.

There are many cases in which no ancillas are produced, so we do not need the assumptions of Lemma 2 that communication is one-way and occurs in large blocks. For example, a cnot can transmit one coherent bit from Alice to Bob or one coherent bit from Bob to Alice. Given one ebit, a cnot can send one coherent bit in both directions at once using the encoding

$$(HI)\text{cnot}(Y^aZ^b)|\mathrm{\Phi }_2_{AB}=|b_A|a_B$$
(2)
This can be made coherent by conditioning the encoding on a quantum register $`|a_A|b_B`$, so that

$$\text{cnot}+\mathrm{ebit}\mathrm{cobit}()+\mathrm{cobit}()$$
(3)
Here $`()`$ denotes communication from Alice to Bob and $`()`$ means from Bob to Alice.

Uses of coherent communication

By discarding her state after sending it, Alice can convert coherent communication into classical communication, so $`1\mathrm{cobit}1\mathrm{cbit}`$. Alice can also generate entanglement by inputting a superposition of messages (as in BHLS ), so $`1\mathrm{cobit}1\mathrm{ebit}`$. The true power of coherent communication comes from performing both tasks—classical communication and entanglement generation—simultaneously. This is possible whenever the classical message sent is random and nearly independent of the other states at the end of the protocol (as in the “oblivious” condition of obliv-RSP ).

Teleportation TP  satisfies these conditions, and indeed a coherent version has already been proposed in TP-coh . Given an unknown quantum state $`|\psi _A`$ and an EPR pair $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2_{AB}`$, Alice begins coherent teleportation not by a Bell measurement on her two qubits but by unitarily rotating the Bell basis into the computational basis via a CNOT and Hadamard gate. This yields the state $`\frac{1}{2}_{ij}|ij_AX^iZ^j|\psi _B`$. Using two coherent bits, Alice can send Bob a copy of her register to obtain $`\frac{1}{2}_{ij}|ij_A|ij_BX^iZ^j|\psi _B`$. Bob’s decoding step can now be made unitary, leaving the state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_2_{AB}^2|\psi _B`$. In terms of resources, this can be summarized as: $`2\mathrm{cobits}+1\mathrm{ebit}1\mathrm{qubit}+2\mathrm{ebits}`$. Since the ebit that we start with is returned at the end of the protocol, we need only use it catalytically: $`2\mathrm{cobits}1\mathrm{qubit}+1\mathrm{ebit}(\mathrm{c})`$. Combining this relation with Eq. (1) yields the equality

$$2\mathrm{cobits}=1\mathrm{qubit}+1\mathrm{ebit}(\mathrm{c}).$$
(4)
Thus teleportation and super-dense coding are reversible so long as all of the classical communication is left coherent.

Another protocol that can be made coherent is Gottesman’s methodGot  for simulating a distributed CNOT (i.e. $`|x_A|y_B|x_A|xy_B`$) using one ebit and one cbit in either direction; i.e. $`1\mathrm{cbit}()+1\mathrm{cbit}()+1\mathrm{ebit}1\text{cnot}`$. At first glance, this appears completely irreversible, since a CNOT can be used to send one cbit forward or backwards, or to create one ebit, but no more than one of these at a time.

Using coherent bits as inputs, though, allows the recovery of 2 ebits at the end of the protocol, so $`1\mathrm{cobit}()+1\mathrm{cobit}()+1\mathrm{ebit}1\text{cnot}+2\mathrm{ebits}`$, or using entanglement catalytically, $`1\mathrm{cobit}()+1\mathrm{cobit}()1\text{cnot}+1\mathrm{ebit}(\mathrm{c})`$. Combined with Eq. (3), this yields another equality:

$$\text{cnot}+\mathrm{ebit}=\mathrm{cobit}()+\mathrm{cobit}()(\mathrm{c}).$$

Another useful bipartite unitary gate is swap, which is equivalent to $`1\mathrm{qubit}()+1\mathrm{qubit}()`$, up to catalysis. Applying Eq. (4) then yields

$$2\text{cnot}=1\text{swap}(\mathrm{c})$$

which explains the similar communication and entanglement capacities for these gates found in BHLS . Previously, the most efficient methods known to transform between these gates gave $`3\text{cnot}1\text{swap}1\text{cnot}`$.

Remote state preparation

In remote state preparation (RSP), Alice uses entanglement and classical communication to prepare a state of her choice in Bob’s lab RSP . Asymptotically, this relation is

$$1\mathrm{cbit}+1\mathrm{ebit}1\text{remote qubit}(\mathrm{a})$$

where “$`n`$ remote qubits” mean the ability of Alice to prepare an arbitrary $`2^n`$-dimensional pure state in Bob’s lab. While the entanglement cost of RSP is shown to be optimal in RSP , this lower bound does not necessarily apply to extended communication protocols that use RSP as a subroutine. In particular, using coherent communication allows all of the entanglement to be recovered at the end of the protocol, so that asymptotically

$$1\mathrm{cobit}1\text{remote qubit}(\mathrm{a})$$
(5)
However, here “$`n`$ remote qubits” means the slightly weaker ability to prepare $`\sqrt{n}`$ states, each with $`2^\sqrt{n}`$ dimensions, so we cannot achieve the full range of remote states possible in RSP  without $`n`$ ebits used as catalysts.

To show Eq. (5), we will need to examine the protocol in RSP  more closely. Alice wishes to transmit a $`d`$-dimensional pure state $`\psi =|\psi \psi |`$ to Bob using the shared state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_d=\frac{1}{\sqrt{d}}_{i=1}^d|ii_{AB}`$. For any $`ϵ>0`$, choose $`n=𝒪(d\mathrm{log}d/ϵ^2)`$. Ref. RSP  proved the existence of a set of $`d\times d`$ unitary gates $`R_1,\mathrm{},R_n`$ such that for any $`\psi `$,

$$\left(1\frac{ϵ}{2}\right)I\frac{d}{n}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}R_k\psi R_k^{}\left(1+\frac{ϵ}{2}\right)I$$
(6)
For $`k=1,\mathrm{},n`$ define $`A_k=\frac{d}{n(1+ϵ/2)}(R_k\psi R_k^{})^T`$, where the transpose is taken in the Schmidt basis of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_d`$. Due to Eq. (6), we have the operator inequalities $`(1ϵ)I_kA_kI`$. Thus, if we define $`A_{\text{fail}}=I_kA_k`$, then $`A_{\text{fail}}0`$, $`\mathrm{Tr}A_{\text{fail}}<dϵ`$ and $`𝐀\{A_1,\mathrm{},A_n,A_{\text{fail}}\}`$ is a valid POVM. When $`𝐀I`$ is applied to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_d`$, the probability of outcome $`A_{\text{fail}}`$ is less than $`ϵ`$. Since for any operator $`O`$, $`(OI)|\mathrm{\Phi }_d=(IO^T)|\mathrm{\Phi }_d`$, measurement outcome $`k`$ leaves Alice and Bob with the state $`R_k^{}|\overline{\psi }R_k|\psi `$ where $`\psi ^T=|\overline{\psi }\overline{\psi }|`$.

We now show how to apply coherent communication to the above procedure. First we apply Neumark’s theoremNeu  to convert A into a unitary operation $`U_𝐀`$ such that

$$U_𝐀|\phi _A|0_A^{}=\underset{k}{}\sqrt{A_k}|\phi _A|k_A^{}+\sqrt{A_{\text{fail}}}|\phi _A|\text{fail}_A^{}$$

After applying $`U_𝐀`$, Alice will perform the two-outcome measurement $`\{_k|kk|,|\text{fail}\text{fail}|\}`$ on system $`A^{}`$. The probability of failure is less than $`ϵ`$ and upon success, the resulting state is

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}R_k^{}|\overline{\psi }_A|k_A^{}R_k|\psi _B$$

This can be simplified if Alice applies the unitary operation $`_k|kk|_A^{}(R_k^T)_A`$ (i.e. $`R_k^T`$ to system $`A`$ conditioned on the value of system $`A^{}`$). Since $`R_k^TR_k^{}=I`$, this leaves $`A`$ in the state $`|\overline{\psi }`$, disentangled from the rest of the system so she can safely discard it. After this, Alice and Bob share the state $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}_{k=1}^n|k_A^{}R_k|\psi _B`$. Alice now uses $`\mathrm{log}n\mathrm{cobits}`$ to transmit $`k`$ to Bob coherently, obtaining $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}_{k=1}^n|k_A^{}|k_B^{}R_k|\psi _B`$. Bob performs the unitary $`_k|kk|_B^{}(R_k^{})_B`$ and ends with $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n_{A^{}B^{}}|\psi _B`$.

Alice and Bob have gone from $`\mathrm{\Phi }_d`$ to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$, which is a slight increase in entanglement, though asymptotically insignificant. Thus $`\mathrm{log}n\mathrm{cobits}\mathrm{log}d\text{ remote qubits}+\mathrm{log}(n/d)\mathrm{ebits}(\mathrm{c})`$, which implies $`1\mathrm{coherent}\mathrm{bit}1\text{ remote qubit}(\mathrm{a})`$. However, for the cost of preparing the inital catalyst to vanish asymptocally, we need to perform RSP in many separate blocks, say $`\sqrt{n}`$ blocks of $`\sqrt{n}`$ qubits each.

###### Corollary 3 (RSP capacity of unitary gates)

If $`UC\mathrm{cbits}(\mathrm{a})`$ then $`UC\text{ remote qubits }(\mathrm{a})`$.

###### Corollary 4

(super-dense coding of quantum states) $`1\mathrm{qubit}+1\mathrm{ebit}2\text{ remote qubits }(\mathrm{a})`$

Corollary 4 was first proven directly in SDDC  and in fact, finding an alternate proof was the original motivation for this work.

Entangled RSP: The states prepared in RSP need not always be completely remote: RSP  also showed how Alice can prepare the ensemble $`=\{p_i,\psi _i\}`$ of bipartite states using $`\chi =SE`$ cbits and $`S`$ ebits, where $`S=S\left(_ip_i\mathrm{Tr}_A\psi _i\right)`$ and $`E=_ip_iS(\mathrm{Tr}_A\psi _i)`$. Using coherent communication allows $`\chi `$ ebits to be recovered, so that

$$\chi \mathrm{cobits}+E\mathrm{ebits}(\mathrm{a}).$$
(7)
Here, by $`n`$, we mean $`n`$ uses of $`U_\psi :|i_A|i_A|\psi _i_{AB}`$ where Alice’s input is restricted to the space spanned by $`|i_1\mathrm{}i_n`$ for $`p`$-typical sequences $`i_1\mathrm{}i_n`$.

The proof of Eq. (7) is just like the proof of Eq. (5), but even simpler since the original protocol in RSP  already left Alice’s state independent of $`k`$ upon success. \[The same benefits of coherent communication do not apply to the “low-entanglement” version of RSP in RSP ; here entanglement can only be recovered from the part of the message corresponding to the measurement.\]

Using super-dense coding with Eq. (7) allows super-dense coding of entangled quantum states according to $`\chi /2\mathrm{qubits}+(E+\chi /2)\mathrm{ebits}`$, a claim for which no direct proof is known.

Coherent RSP of entangled states can also help determine the communication capacity of bipartite unitary gates as introduced in BHLS . For any $`e`$, define $`C_e(U)`$ to be the largest number such that $`U+e\mathrm{ebits}C_e(U)\mathrm{cbits}(\mathrm{a})`$. For negative values of $`e`$, $`C_e`$ corresponds to creating $`e`$ ebits per use of $`U`$ in addition to communicating $`C_e`$ cbits; we arbitrarily set $`C_e=\mathrm{}`$ when $`Ue\mathrm{ebits}`$.

###### Proposition 5

$`C_e(U)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _e(U)`$
$`:=`$ $`\underset{}{sup}\{\chi (U)\chi ():E()E(U)e\}`$
where $`=\{p_i,\psi _i\}`$ is an ensemble of bipartite states, $`U=\{p_i,U\psi _iU^{}\}`$ and $`\chi `$ and $`E`$ are defined as above.

Thus the asymptotic capacity equals the largest increase in mutual information possible with one use of $`U`$ if the average entanglement decreases by no more than $`e`$. This was proven for $`e=\mathrm{}`$ by BHLS .

Achieving $`C_e(U)\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _e(U)`$:

We base our protocol on the one used in Section 4.3 of BHLS  to show $`C_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _{\mathrm{}}`$. For any ensemble $``$,

$`U+`$ $``$ $`U`$ (9)
$``$ $`\chi (U)\mathrm{cobits}+E(U)\mathrm{ebits}(\mathrm{a})`$
$``$ $`(\chi (U)\chi ())\mathrm{cobits}`$
$`+(E(U)E())\mathrm{ebits}+(\mathrm{a})`$
Here Eq. (9) used Lemma 2 and Eq. (9) used Eq. (7).

Now we move the ebits to the left hand side and neglect the catalytic use of $``$ to get

$$U+(E()E(U))\mathrm{ebits}(\chi (U)\chi ())\mathrm{cobits}$$

Taking the supremum of the right-hand side over all $``$ with $`E()E(U)e`$ yields $`C_e(U)\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _e(U)`$.

Proving $`C_e(U)\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _e(U)`$:

Without loss of generality, we can assume Alice and Bob defer all measurements until the end of the protocol, so at all points we work with pure state ensembles. Since $`\chi ()`$ and $`E()`$ are invariant under local unitaries and non-increasing under the final measurement, we need only consider how they are modified by $`U`$. Thus, $`n`$ uses of $`U`$ and $`ne`$ ebits can increase the mutual information by at most $`n_jp_j\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _{e_j}`$ for some $`_jp_j=1`$ and $`_jp_je_je`$. Our bound will follow from proving that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi _e`$ is a concave function of $`e`$.

To prove concavity, consider a probability distribution $`\{p_j\}`$, a set of ensembles $`_j`$ and the new ensemble $`=\{p_j,|jj_{AB}_j\}`$. Taking the simultaneous supremum of $`\chi (U_j)\chi (_j)`$ over each $`_j`$ subject to $`E(_j)E(U_j)e_j`$ completes the proof.

Quantum capacities of unitary gates We can also consider the ability of unitary gates to send quantum information. Define $`Q_e`$ to be the largest number such that $`U+e\mathrm{ebits}Q_e\mathrm{qubits}`$. Then from Eq. (4), one can obtain

$$Q_e=\frac{1}{2}C_{e+Q_e}$$
(10)
where $`C_e`$ can be determined from Proposition 5.

Conclusions

Coherent communication offers a new way of looking at quantum information resources in which irreversible transformations occur only when coherence is discarded and not just because we are transforming incomparable resources. Whenever classical communication is used in a quantum protocol, either as input or output, and the classical message is nearly independent of the other quantum states, there may be gains from making the communication coherent.

The case of noisy coherent communication remains to be fully solved and it would be interesting to find the coherent capacity of a noisy channel, or more generally to find their $`C_e`$ and $`Q_e`$ tradeoff curves. Some preliminary results in these directions have been obtainedfamily .

###### Acknowledgements.

My thanks go to C.H. Bennett, P. Hayden, D. Leung, J. Smolin, A. Winter and especially I. Devetak for helping me come up with and refine the ideas in this paper. I am also grateful for the hospitality of the Caltech IQI, IBM T.J. Watson research center and the ERATO center. My funding is from the NSA and ARDA under ARO contract DAAD19-01-1-06.


format: text

text:
# Level statistics and eigenfunctions of pseudointegrable systems: dependence on energy and genus number

## I Introduction

Quantum billiards are quite simple models for many practical applications in solid state and nuclear physics, as e.g. quantum dots, microdisk lasers and electron transport in microstructures. An important means for the study of quantum billiards is the statistics of the quantum mechanical energy levels of a given system, where the distance distribution $`p(s)`$ of the normalized distances $`s_\alpha =(E_{\alpha +1}E_\alpha )/s`$ between two consecutive energy levels $`E_{\alpha +1}`$ and $`E_\alpha `$ with the mean distance $`s`$ has the following two limiting cases. (i) The Poisson distribution, $`p_P(s)=\mathrm{exp}[s]`$, which is the distance distribution of uncorrelated numbers $`E_\alpha `$ and (ii) the Wigner distribution $`p_W(s)=\pi s/(2s^2)\mathrm{exp}[\pi s^2/(4s^2)]`$. An example for the case (i) are the energy levels of a single symmetry group of an electron in a 2D potential well in the shape of a square, rectangle or circle (integrable systems). As a second example, localized states in disordered systems tend to the Poisson distribution with increasing system size, which is largely used in solid state physics to distinguish between localized and extended states in disordered systems . An example for the case (ii) are the energy levels of chaotic billiards, as e.g. the stadium or the Sinai billiard.

In close analogy is the behavior of a classical particle in a billiard, which undergoes elastic reflections at the walls. It also has two limiting cases, depending on the billiard geometry. If the billiard is chaotic, the motion of the particle is ergodically extended over the whole energy surface in phase space. Two particles whose trajectories are very close at the beginning, diverge exponentially from each other. If the system is integrable on the other hand, the motion of the particle is restricted to a two-dimensional torus in phase space and neighboring trajectories diverge only linearly from each other.

There are, however, several classes of intermediate systems between the two limiting cases, as e.g. polygonal pseudointegrable systems , on which we focuse in this paper, or systems with a pointlike scatterer (”Seba-Billiards”) . Like in integrable systems, the motion of a classical particle in a pseudointegrable system is restricted to a two-dimensional surface in phase space. However, these surfaces do not have the shapes of tori but are more complicated objects with more than one hole. They are called ”multihandeled spheres”. Examples for pseudointegrable systems are polygons with only rational angles $`n_i\pi /m_i`$, with $`n_i,m_i`$ and at least one $`n_i>1`$. They are described by their genus number

$$g=1+\frac{M}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{J}{}}\frac{n_i1}{m_i},$$
(1)
which is equal to the number of holes in the multihandeled sphere in phase space. Here, $`J`$ is the number of angles and $`M`$ is the least common multiple of the $`m_i`$. The reason that those systems are not completely integrable is their property of beam splitting. At some points in their geometry, neighboring trajectories of particles can be split into two opposite directions (see Fig. 1).

Several works  found the distance distribution of pseudointegrable systems intermediate between the Poisson- and the Wigner distribution. Ref.  presented a numerical investigation of pseudointegrable billiards of small genus numbers, where the boundary was approached by a step function, which was arranged along the curved shape of the (chaotic) Sinai billiard. With decreasing size and increasing number of the steps, the level statistics of this system approached the Wigner statistics. However, as it was pointed out in this work, the analysis was performed at very small energies, where the wavelengths were larger than the step sizes. So, it was assumed that the Wigner-like level statistics was not an inherent feature of the pseudointegrable shapes, but came from the underlying assymptotic shape of the Sinai billiard. Pseudointegrable systems of small genus numbers $`g=2`$ and $`3`$ were investigated numerically  and experimentally , showing an intermediate level statistics that clearly deviated from the Wigner distribution. In , numerical simulations on systems with increasing genus numbers up to $`g1000`$ indicated that for not too small energies, the distance distribution changes systematically from Poisson-like towards Wigner-like behavior with increasing $`g`$. Also for Seba billiards, it was shown by general arguments and numerical calculations that the level statistics is intermediate and close to Wigner-like behavior for small level distances . The Wigner-like behavior is increased with the number and the coupling strength of the pointlike scatterers in the system .

The level statistics seems to be connected to the properties of the eigenfunctions. For example, in a billiard with $`g=2`$ it was found that there are regular and irregular eigenfunctions coexisting . In the Husimi representation, the eigenfunctions of systems with small $`g`$ show signatures of pseudointegrability, whereas those of systems with large $`g`$ tend to be irregular .

In this paper, we want to investigate the energy dependence of the level statistics of a special class of pseudointegrable systems with high genus numbers. At low energies, it is known that one can observe a level statistics that deviates from the high-energy limit, as shown in Ref.  for pseudointegrable and in Refs.  for chaotic billiards. Here we find that for our systems, there can be many energy windows, where the level statistics is comparatively close to Poisson statistics, and other energy intervals, where the behavior is close to Wigner statistics. We show that this behavior is correlated to the properties of the eigenfunctions and that there exist several characteristic types of such intervals, even at energy values, where the boundary roughness is resolved.

The paper is organized as follows: In section II, we introduce the special pseudointegrable geometries that we consider. In section III, we show the results of the level statistics of the eigenvalues for several systems of different values of $`g`$. In section IV, we investigate the eigenfunctions $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}`$ in these energy intervals and introduce several quantitative measures, i.e., the localization volume $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(\alpha )}`$, the amplitude distribution $`P(\psi ^{(\alpha )})`$ and the behavior of the eigenfunctions in $`n,m`$-space. The functions $`\psi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ differ in their normalization, $`\psi =\sqrt{A}\mathrm{\Psi }`$, with the area $`A`$ of the system. Finally, in section V, we apply those measures to many eigenfunctions in the different energy intervals. We find that in intervals where the energy-levels behave Poisson-like, the eigenfunctions are either localized or regular. Energy intervals with level statistics close to Wigner-like behavior, on the other hand, contain eigenfunctions that are random superpositions of plane waves. Also an interesting mixed case appears, where the superposition of plane waves leads to weak localization.

## II Systems and Calculations

We consider a membrane of the sound velocity $`c`$ that lies in the $`xy`$-plane and vibrates in the $`z`$-direction. When the restoring forces are considered as scalar, the vibrations of this membrane are described by the Helmholtz equation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}(x,y)=\frac{\omega _\alpha ^2}{c^2}\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}(x,y),$$
(2)
with the $`\alpha ^{th}`$ eigenfunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}(x,y)`$, the corresponding eigenvalue $`\omega _\alpha ^2`$. The boundary conditions can be of Dirichlet or of Neumann type, referring to a membrane that is kept fixed at the boundary or that can vibrate freely, respectively. Equation (2) has the same form as the stationary Schrödinger equation with zero potential $`V=0`$ inside the system. Therefore, under Dirichlet boundary conditions, which refer to an infinite potential on the boundary, it also describes an electron of mass $`\mu `$ in an infinite potential well. In this case, one has to replace $`\omega _\alpha ^2/c^2`$ by $`2\mu E_\alpha /\mathrm{}^2`$, with the energy eigenvalue $`E_\alpha `$.

For the numerical calculations, Eq. (2) is discretized on a square lattice, which reduces the problem to the diagonalization of a symmetric matrix, which is carried out here by the Lanczos algorithm , a numerical procedure to compute eigenvalues und -vectors of sparse $`N\times N`$-matrices by reducing them iteratively to a tridiagonal form, for which effective algorithms exist. The eigenvalues $`E_\alpha `$ are calculated numerically under Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions and their spectra are analyzed by the means of level statistics. The $`E_\alpha `$ are dimensionless quantities, as we set $`\mathrm{}^2/(2\mu )=1`$ and $`d=1`$, where $`d`$ is the lattice constant of the discrete lattice.

As a model for our studies we chose rational billiards of the shape presented in Fig. 1 with different parameters, refering to different numbers, widths, distances and heights of the ”teeth”. The genus numbers of these geometries can be easily increased by increasing the number of teeth. Two different angles occur, $`\phi =\pi /2`$ and $`\phi =3\pi /2`$. Applying Eq. (1) we find that $`g=1+G_i`$, where $`G_i`$ is the number of angles of values $`\phi =3\pi /2`$. The systems have no symmetry axes and it is therefore not necessary to separate the calculated eigenvalues according to their symmetry groups (which would be technically difficult). The considered parameters range from systems with only few teeth and therefore very small genus numbers up to systems of $`g=101`$.

## III Level Statistics

We now analyze the eigenvalues by the means of level statistics. The energy levels $`E_\alpha `$ are normalized (”unfolded”) to new values $`\epsilon _\alpha `$, such that their mean distance $`s`$ is equal to $`1`$. Then, we calculate the following two quantities:

(i) From the nearest neighbor spacing distribution $`p(s)`$, it has become common to calculate the second half moments

$$I_0=\frac{1}{2}s^2=\frac{1}{2}_0^{\mathrm{}}s^2p(s)𝑑s,$$
(3)
which lie between the two limiting values $`I_0^{\mathrm{Wigner}}0.637`$ and $`I_0^{\mathrm{Poisson}}=1`$ (see Refs. ). This enables us to decide, if the statistics is closer to Wigner or closer to Poisson by comparing just one number $`I_0`$ and is more comfortable in handling than $`p(s)`$ itself.

(ii) Another measure, which turns out to be even more sensitive to $`g`$ is the spectral rigidity $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$, where $`L`$ is the length of the considered energy interval . $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ starts from the integrated density of states $`N(\epsilon )N(\epsilon _\alpha )=_{n=1}^N\mathrm{\Theta }(\epsilon _\alpha \epsilon _n)`$ of the unfolded energy levels $`\epsilon _\alpha `$, which is a staircase and can be approached by a straight line of slope one. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ is defined as the least square deviation,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)=\mathrm{Min}_{\mathrm{r}_1,\mathrm{r}_2}_{\epsilon \mathrm{L}/2}^{\epsilon +\mathrm{L}/2}[\mathrm{N}(\epsilon )\mathrm{r}_1\mathrm{r}_2\epsilon ]^2d\epsilon ,$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{Min}_{\mathrm{r}_1,\mathrm{r}_2}`$ means that the parameters $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ are chosen such that the line $`r_1+r_2\epsilon `$ is the best fit of $`N(\epsilon )`$. For the calculation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ we use the technique derived in Ref. . The limiting values are $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)=L/15`$ for integrable systems and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)=\mathrm{ln}(L)/\pi ^20.07/\pi ^2+O(L^1)`$ for the ensemble of Gaussian orthogonal matrices (GOE) , which serves as a general accepted good limit for chaotic systems. This means that in the first case, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ increases linearly with $`L`$, and in the second case logarithmically. As discussed above, we expect intermediate behavior for pseudointegrable billiards.

In this paper, we will basically use $`I_0`$ as the easier of the two measures. However, we first want to compare the behavior of $`I_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ for several systems, ranging from very small values of $`g=3`$ until $`g=49`$ at higher energies. The parameters of these systems are shown in Tab. I. All systems have roughly the same area and exactly the same widths and heights of the teeth, $`a=h=8d`$, where $`d`$ is the lattice constant.

In Figs. 2(a) and (c) we plotted the values of $`I_0`$ for Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions versus the energy. In Figs. 2(b) and (d) we show the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$-data of the fixed energy intervals $`E(=\omega ^2/c^2)[1.5,2.0]`$ versus $`L`$. The energy interval is chosen such that the wavelength, $`\lambda =2\pi c/\omega `$ is smaller than the widths of the teeth and therefore the boundary roughness is resolved. The behavior of $`I_0`$ shows many fluctuations but its average value decreases systematically with growing $`g`$ towards the Wigner limit, which is shown as a solid line. Comparing Figs. 2(a) and (c), we also see that the behavior for both boundary conditions is quite similar. The only exception occurs at very small energies, where $`I_0`$ lies considerably higher in the Dirichlet case. The reason for this is that the condition $`\psi =0`$ exactly at the boundary prevents the long-wavelengths eigenfunctions to penetrate into the small boundary teeths. The same ”screening” of the boundary roughness at small energies has already been observed for fractal drums . For $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ of pseudointegrable systems it was shown in  by a semiclassical periodic orbit theory that it depends on several details, e.g. on the energy interval and on the area of the system. However, by keeping the billiard area, the energy interval and the height and width of the teeth fixed, we find also for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ a smooth and systematic behavior, that depends on $`g`$.

The behavior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ (see Figs. 2(a) and (c)) corresponds to the one of $`I_0`$. Those systems with small genus numbers $`g`$ show high values of $`I_0`$ and accordingly values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$, which are close to $`L/15`$ (dotted line). Systems with high genus numbers $`g`$ on the other hand, show $`I_0`$-values close to $`I_0^{\mathrm{Wigner}}`$ and accordingly $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-curves, which are also closer to the Wigner-limit (solid line). Similar to the case of Seba billiards, they come very close to the Wigner distribution for small $`L`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)`$ turns out to be a more sensitive measure than $`I_0`$ in the case of large $`g`$-values. While the values of $`I_0`$ for systems with genus numbers $`g>20`$ lie already so close to the Wigner limit that a succession between them can hardly be recognized, we still observe clear differences between the individual curves of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ in the case of larger level distances. However, also the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ data indicate a systematic change from Poisson-like towards Wigner-like behavior with increasing $`g`$.

In the following, we concentrate on $`I_0`$. We calculate $`I_0`$ for several selected systems with different heights, widths and numbers of the teeth in the energy range of $`E[0,3]`$, which corresponds to roughly $`40000`$ energy levels. The calculations were made in intervals of energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=0.05`$, each of them containing about $`600800`$ levels. Here, we applied Neumann boundary conditions in all cases. The behavior of $`I_0`$ under Dirichlet boundary conditions is qualitatively similar.

First, we discuss the case of random values of the parameters $`a`$, $`b_x`$, $`b_y`$ and $`h`$ (Tab. II). For the first system $`R_1`$ the values were uniformly distributed between $`4d`$ and $`15d`$, for the second system $`R_2`$ between $`4d`$ and $`10d`$. The areas of the systems are again kept roughly constant. In Fig. 3 (a), $`I_0`$ is plotted versus the energy $`E`$ for the systems $`R_1`$ (dashed lines) and $`R_2`$ (solid lines). For most energy values, we find a roughly constant value of $`I_0`$ that lies close to the Wigner-value. Only for very low energy values, $`E[0,0.2]`$ (which corresponds to roughly $`2100`$ levels), $`I_0`$ shows deviations from the high energy behaviour, towards higher values. This is due to the finite resolution of the boundary roughness in the limit of long wavelengths, where the systems look more regular. So, for a random structure of the boundary roughness, the high energy limit is reached quickly and no deviations of the $`I_0`$ values from the Wigner limit are seen beyond the first $`2000`$ states.

In Fig. 3(b-c), $`I_0`$ is plotted versus $`E`$ for two types of systems with periodic boundary roughness, whose parameters are presented in Tab. III. In the first group (Fig. 3(b)), all systems have the same widths $`a=b_x=b_y=4d`$ and numbers $`N_x`$ and $`N_y`$ of the ”teeth” (and correspondingly the same genus number $`g=87`$). The heights of the teeth are different, $`h=4d`$ for system $`B_1`$ (solid lines), $`8d`$ for system $`B_2`$ (dotted lines) and $`16d`$ for system $`B_3`$ (dashed lines). We first see that the narrow teeth account for a large low-energy regime with Poisson-like behaviour. Additionaly, we observe sharp peaks of the $`I_0`$ values at several energies, which become more pronounced with increasing $`h`$ and are most probably due to the periodic structures of the geometry. We will discuss these peaks in the following sections. The second group (cf. Fig. 3(c)) consists of billiards with larger widths $`a=b_x=b_y=8`$. This group of billiards shows less and only small peaks in the $`I_0`$-values and the high energy regime is reached quite quickly.

Therefore we found two types of systems, where the high energy limit is reached quickly: geometries with broad teeth and geometries with a random distribution of the teeth widths. In systems with very narrow and regular teeth, on the other hand, energy windows appear, where the behavior of the system deviates significantly from the described behavior in the high-energy regime. In these intervals, the values of $`I_0`$ are considerably larger than the expected high-energy values. These energy windows are most interesting and we look at them in more detail now.

There are three different effects, which may lead to higher values of $`I_0`$. First, at smaller energies (larger wavelengths), the teeth could not be sufficiently resolved and the states see only the rectangular main body of the system. This is the case for small energies, when half a wavelength is larger than the width $`a`$ and the eigenfunctions are not small enough to penetrate the teeth. Second, also at higher energy values, the periodic structure of the teeth could allow for very regular functions, even if the boundary roughness is fully resolved. Also in this case, we expect a distribution close to Poisson. Third, also localized states can be a reason for the spectrum to behave Poisson-like. Therefore, we expect that $`I_0`$ is closely related to special system properties and should be reflected in the shape of the eigenfunctions. In order to understand this, we now investigate the eigenfunctions in the different energy windows.

## IV Eigenfunctions

Some typical eigenfunctions of the system $`B_3`$ under Neumann boundary conditions are presented on Fig. 4. They are taken from the different energy regimes (labeled from $`I`$ to $`IV`$), as indicated in Fig. 4(f). Due to technical restrictions of the Lanczos algorithm, we could not calculate eigenfunctions of arbitrary high energies in large system sizes. The reason is that the density of states increases with the energy and the eigenfunctions become too close to each other and thus could not be seperated. At lower energies, we find the following characteristic shapes:

The eigenfunctions $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ia)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ib)}`$ of Fig. 4(a) and (b) are taken from the energy regime $`I`$, where $`I_0`$ has the peak value of $`I_0=0.942`$, very close to the Poisson value. The functions look different. While the function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ia)}`$ on Fig. 4(a) looks very regular and extended, function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ib)}`$ on Fig. 4(b) is a rather localized (and regular) function, where non-zero amplitudes exist basically close to the boundary, i.e. inside the boundary teeth. Figure 4(c) (regime $`II`$ on the Fig. 4(f)) represents rather the case of a chaotic function, i.e. the amplitude looks very random. Accordingly, we find $`I_0=0.688`$ in this energy regime, closer to the Wigner value. The function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(III)}`$ on Fig. 4(d) (regime $`III`$ on the Fig. 4(f)) looks again regular and $`I_0=0.893`$ is again close to the Poisson value. The difference of this function to the function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ia)}`$ is the smaller wavelength in regime $`III`$. Here, the boundary roughness is to some extent resolved and the reason for the regular wavefunction lies in the periodicity of the teeth. These regular wavefunctions at higher energies should disappear in systems with random boundary roughness. Figure 4(e) (regime $`IV`$ on the Fig. 4(f)) represents an interesting intermediate case of a function that is chaotic as well as localized. $`I_0`$ in this case is $`0.667`$, rather close to the Wigner value. The function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(IV)}`$ looks random in the inner rectangular part of the billiard, but its amplitudes in this part are very small. The largest amplitudes of the function are localized on the border of the teeth. So this case is in some sense intermediate between a localized and a chaotic function. This seems to be a weak localization mechanism, where the wave is reflected at the boundary roughness and interferes constructively inside the teeth.

Accordingly, we found four characteristic types of eigenfunctions, regular ones, localized ones, chaotic ones and intermediate ones between chaotic and localized. All eigenfunctions seem to correspond to energy windows, which can be characterized by their corresponding $`I_0`$-values. We now introduce several measures for the eigenfunctions that allow us to distinguish between those cases.

(i) As a first characteristics for the eigenfunction analysis we used the distribution of the amplitudes $`P(\psi )`$. By semiclassical arguments it was conjectured that for classically chaotic systems most eigenfunctions are a random superposition of plane waves, which leads to an amplitude distribution that is a Gaussian function ,

$$P(\psi )=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}e^{\psi ^2/2}$$
(5)
where $`\psi =\sqrt{A}\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is normalized according to $`\left|\psi (x,y)\right|^2𝑑x𝑑y=A`$ with the area $`A`$ of the billiard. This normalization allows us to compare eigenfunctions of systems with different sizes. The amplitude distribution of eigenfunctions of a rectangular billiard, on the other hand, was shown to be :

$$P(\psi )=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{4}{\pi ^2(2+\psi ^2)}K\left(\frac{2|\psi |}{2+|\psi |}\right),\hfill & 0<|\psi |2\text{;}\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & |\psi |>2\text{ ;}\hfill \end{array}$$
(6)
where $`K(k)`$ is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. $`P(\psi )`$ was already studied for the $`\pi /3`$-rhombus billiard with $`g=2`$  and for systems with a pointlike scatterer .

In Fig. 5 we show the amplitude distributions of our eigenfunctions from Fig. 4 by the open circles. (The filled circles will be explained in the next section.) The limiting cases of the Gaussian distribution for random functions and of Eq. (6) for regular functions are indicated by a dotted and a solid line, respectively. For the regular looking functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ia)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(III)}`$ (cf. Figs. 5(a) and (d)) we find a very good agreement with Eq. (6). The amplitude distribution on Fig. 5(b) for function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ib)}`$ on the other hand consists of one large peak at $`\psi 0`$. This function is localized and only in a very small region of the billiard the amplitude is large. The function $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(II)}`$ on Fig. 5(c) represents a function with a Gaussian distribution of the amplitude (cf. Eq. (5)). This is in line with our estimation that the function looks chaotic. The last case of the eigenfunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(IV)}`$ that looks intermediate shows a distribution, which lies between the curves of the Gaussian and the localized function (cf. Fig. 5(e)).

(ii) A second quantity to characterize the eigenfunctions is the localization volume $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(\alpha )}`$ (participation ratio) ,

$$V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(\alpha )}=\frac{V_\alpha }{A}\frac{1}{A\left|\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}\right|^4𝑑x𝑑y},$$
(7)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is normalized according to $`\left|\mathrm{\Psi }(x,y)\right|^2𝑑x𝑑y=1`$ and $`V_\alpha =\left(\left|\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}\right|^4𝑑x𝑑y\right)^1`$. For some specific examples of $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x,y)`$, we find

$$V_{\mathrm{loc}}=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{for constant functions}\hfill \\ 4/9\hfill & \text{for regular sine or cosine-functions}\hfill \\ 1/3\hfill & \text{for Gaussian functions}\hfill \\ 1/A\hfill & \text{for }\delta \text{-functions.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
For the functions of Figs. 4(a-e), we find $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(Ia)}0.429`$, $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(Ib)}0.025`$, $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(II)}0.332`$, $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(III)}0.441`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(IV)}0.060`$. $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(Ia)}`$ as well as $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(III)}`$ is very close to the value of $`4/9`$ of a regular cosine-function, whereas $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(Ib)}`$ is very small and corresponds to a localized state. The localization volume $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(II)}`$ is very close to $`1/3`$ for Gaussian functions, which confirms that the function is chaotic. For the last function, $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(IV)}`$ is again small, which means that also this function is rather localized, even if its $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ is slightly larger than $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(Ib)}`$. In all cases, the values of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}^{(\alpha )}`$ match very well to the amplitude distributions $`P(\psi )`$ of Fig. 5.

(iii) As a third measure for the eigenfunctions, we investigate the energy surface. In order to do so, we expand their amplitudes $`C_{n,m}^{(\alpha )}=\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,m}`$ in the basis $`n,m`$ of a rectangular billiard, which has the same linear extensions $`x,y`$ as our rough billiard. Here, $`\alpha `$ enumerates the eigenstates of the rough billiard, while $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,m}`$ are the eigenfunctions of the rectangular system. A similar analysis for chaotic billiards has been performed in Refs. .

The amplitudes $`|C_{n,m}^{(\alpha )}|`$ of our eigenfunctions are shown in Fig. 6. Except for the localized state $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ib)}`$, where the functions $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,m}(x,y)`$ do not form a good basis, the values of $`|C_{n,m}^{(\alpha )}|`$ appear as peaks that are situated very close to the line of constant energy, $`E_\alpha (n^2+m^2)`$. This means that those eigenstates $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,m}(x,y)`$ of the rectangular system, which have the energy $`E_{n,m}`$ close to $`E_\alpha `$, interfere and form the eigenstates $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\alpha )}`$ of the rough system. However, the number of the participating states is very different. The regular states are represented in $`n,m`$-space by one large peak (one coefficient $`C_{n,l}^{(\alpha )}`$ has the absolut value close to 1), while the contribution of the others is vanishing. This is the case for the functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(Ia)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(III)}`$, whose $`n,m`$-space can be seen in Figs. 6(a) and (c), respectively. $`|C_{n,m}^{(II)}|`$ of the chaotic state $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(II)}`$ is shown in Fig. 6(b).

Here, we find many peaks of roughly equal heights along the energy surface, which shows that this state is a superposition of many different states $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,m}(x,y)`$ that contribute roughly by equal weight and is therefore spread over the whole energy surface in $`n,m`$-space. A more complicated intermediate situation can be found in Fig. 6(d) (corresponding to the amplitude of $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(IV)}`$). Here, we find a dense distribution of peaks on the energy surface (as for the chaotic state), but also several secondary broader peaks that are not lying close to the curve of $`E_\alpha (n^2+m^2)`$ and seem to be due to the high amplitudes localized in the ”teeth”, which cannot be described in the basis of the rectangular billiard. This state is obviously intermediate between localized and chaotic. Accordingly, also the $`n,m`$-space matches very well to the preceeding measures of the eigenfunctions and to the values of $`I_0`$.

## V Distribution of eigenfunctions

We have seen in the last section that for five selected functions, all measures of the eigenfunctions match very well with the $`I_0`$-results found from level statistics. In intervals, where the level statistics is closer to Poisson-like behavior ($`I_0`$ close to $`1`$), we found eigenfunctions, which are either regular or localized. In intervals where the level statistics is close to Wigner-like behavior ($`I_00.637`$) on the other hand, the eigenfunctions seem to be chaotic with a Gaussian distribution of the amplitudes and spread over the whole energy surface in $`n`$,$`m`$-space. Now, we look at the distribution of the eigenfunctions inside a given energy interval. For this purpose, we calculated more than $`100`$ eigenstates for each of the four energy regimes of Fig. 4(f) ($`341`$ eigenfunctions in regime $`I`$, $`131`$ states in regime $`II`$, $`139`$ states in regime $`III`$ and $`144`$ in regime $`IV`$). In each case, we calculated $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ and the amplitude distribution $`P(\psi )`$ over all eigenfunctions.

In Fig. 7, we show the normalized histograms of the $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$-values for the four energy regimes. In the first regime (see Fig. 7 (a)), we find two peaks: one peak is close to $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}=0.44`$, which corresponds to eigenstates of a rectangular billiard, and one peak at $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}<0.1`$, indicating localized states. In the second energy regime (see Fig. 7 (b)), we find a narrow distribution of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ around the value of $`0.33`$ of chaotic functions, in good agreement with the relatively low value of $`I_0=0.688`$ in this regime. In the third regime (see Fig. 7 (c)), the values of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ are distributed in the interval $`[0.350.46]`$ with two peaks around $`0.37`$ and $`0.44`$. That indicates basically regular states with a slight end towards random behavior, which is in line with the value of $`I_0=0.893`$ in this regime. In the fourth energy regime (see Fig. 7 (d)), most of the $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$-values are roughly distributed in the interval $`[0.1,0.2]`$, which means again that the states are quite localized. Nevertheless the value of $`I_0=0.667`$ in this regime is rather close to $`I_0^{\mathrm{Wigner}}`$ for chaotic functions. This contradiction accounts for intermediate states between localized and chaotic.

Next, we look at the average amplitude distributions in our four regimes, which are shown in Fig. 5 (a-e) by the full circles. Since in the regime $`I`$ two types of eigenfunctions exist, we split them into two groups according to their $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$-values. The average amplitude distribution for 263 states with $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}>0.2`$ is presented in Fig. 5(a) and the one for 78 functions with $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}0.2`$ on Fig. 5(b). The distributions in the regimes $`IIIV`$ are shown in Fig. 5 (c-e) by full circles. The distributions are very close to those for the individual functions (open circles), from the preceeding section, showing that the features, which we found for the single functions are characteristic for a whole energy regime. The eigenfunctions of regime $`I`$ are either localized or regular, the eigenfunctions of regime $`II`$ chaotic, the eigenfunctions of regime $`III`$ again close to regular functions and in regime $`IV`$, there are a lot of intermediate functions between localized and chaotic. It is remarkable that even the intermediate functions cover a whole energy window and explains the discrepancy between the rather small values of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ and the value of $`I_0`$, which is close to the Wigner-limit.

With these measures in mind, we can finally look at the systems with a random distribution of teeth widths, where $`I_0`$ approached the Wigner limit very fast. In Fig. 8, we show (a) the histogram of the $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$-values and in (b) the amplitude distribution of $`152`$ eigenfunctions of system $`R_1`$ in the energy interval $`[0.2250.240]`$. The values of the localization volumes show a narrow distribution around the value of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}=0.33`$ of Gaussian functions and the amplitude distribution $`P(\psi )`$ coincides with a Gaussian function. So, these functions are quite obviously a random superposition of plane waves.

## VI Conclusions

In summary, we investigated the level statistics and the eigenfunctions of pseudointegrable rough billiards with high genus numbers $`g`$. They had a rectangular body and a rough boundary with small ”teeth” of different widths, distances and heights. The level statistics was found to be intermediate between Poisson- and Wigner-like behavior and approached the latter with increasing $`g`$. Especially for small level distances, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$-curves can come very close to the Wigner statistics. This behavior was similar to the one of Seba billiards with an increasing number of pointlike scatterers .

Additionally, we found different energy intervals with characteristic types of eigenfunctions, which correspond to a special behavior of the level statistics. In order to classify the eigenfunctions we employed several measures: the localization volume $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$, the amplitude distribution $`P(\psi )`$ and the behavior of the eigenfunctions in $`n,m`$-space.

We found that all systems have a low-energy regime, where the wavelengths of the eigenfunctions are too large to resolve the boundary teeth and thus only see the main rectangular body of the billiard. The eigenfunctions in the low-energy regime have the characteristics of regular functions with the level statistics close to the Poisson distribution. However, for systems with a random distribution of the boundary teeth or for very broad teeth, this regime stays very small and the high-energy regime is quickly reached.

For higher energies, the eigenfunctions of systems with either random boundary roughness or with not too small teeth, are characterized by a close-to-Gaussian amplitude distribution $`P(\psi )`$ with a localization volume of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}0.33`$. They can be constructed by a random superposition of many regular functions. The second half moments $`I_0`$ of the energy spacing distribution $`p(s)`$ at higher energies are – apart from fluctuations – energy-independent and close to a Wigner-like behavior for large $`g>20`$. Also the spectral rigidity $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ changes from Poisson-like towards Wigner-like behavior when $`g`$ increases. However, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ changes slower and still shows deviations from the Wigner behavior even for large $`g`$.

For the case of periodic and narrow boundary teeth, we find many energy regimes, where the level statistics is close to Poisson behavior. We find that those functions are either localized with very small values of $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ or regular cosine functions with $`V_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ close to $`0.44`$. Also an interesting regime occurs, where the eigenfunctions show intermediate behavior with chaotic traces in the main body of the system but very high amplitudes inside the teeth, indicating weak localization.

Accordingly, deviations from a Wigner-like behavior of the level statistics are due to three different effects, (i) a poor resolution of the boundary roughness at very small energies, (ii) regular wavefunctions due to periodic boundary roughness and (iii) localization. However, for random boundary roughness and not too small energies, those effects are not pronounced and the eigenfunctions can mostly be described by a random superposition of plane waves, which is for pseudointegrable systems remarkable.

For further research it would be interesting to investigate the eigenfunctions in the high-energy regime, which might help to understand the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ data for large values of $`g`$. As $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3`$ measures the long-range correlations between eigenvalues it seems likely that even a very small amount of regular or localized eigenfunctions in an energy interval of otherwise chaotic functions can lead to these deviations.

## VII Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. We would like to thank Jan Kantelhardt for making us familiar with the Lanczos algorithm and the calculation of the second half moments and Armin Bunde for a careful reading of the manuscript and interesting remarks.