We show that the variance of the number of connected components of the zero set of the two-dimensional Gaussian ensemble of random spherical harmonics of degree n grows as a positive power of n. The proof uses no special properties of spherical harmonics and works for any sufficiently regular ensemble of Gaussian random functions on the two-dimensional sphere with distribution invariant with respect to isometries of the sphere.
Our argument connects the fluctuations in the number of nodal lines with those in a random loop ensemble on planar graphs of degree four, which can be viewed as a step towards justification of the Bogomolny-Schmit heuristics.
Using the spectral multiplicities of the standard torus, we endow the Laplace eigenspaces with Gaussian probability measures. This induces a notion of random Gaussian Laplace eigenfunctions on the torus ("arithmetic random waves"). We study the distribution of the nodal length of random eigenfunctions for large eigenvalues, and our primary result is that the asymptotics for the variance is non-universal, and is intimately related to the arithmetic of lattice points lying on a circle with radius corresponding to the energy.
Using the multiplicities of the Laplace eigenspace on the sphere (the space of spherical harmonics) we endow the space with Gaussian probability measure. This induces a notion of random Gaussian spherical harmonics of degree $n$ having Laplace eigenvalue $E=n(n+1)$. We study the length distribution of the nodal lines of random spherical harmonics. It is known that the expected length is of order $n$. It is natural to conjecture that the variance should be of order $n$, due to the natural scaling. Our principal result is that, due to an unexpected cancelation, the variance of the nodal length o…
In 2017, Benatar and Maffucci arXiv:1708.07015 established an asymptotic law for the variance of the nodal surface of arithmetic random waves on the 3-torus in the high-energy limit. In a subsequent work, Cammarota arXiv:1708.07679 proved a universal non-Gaussian limit theorem for the nodal surface. In this paper, we study the nodal intersection length and the number of nodal intersection points associated, respectively, with two and three independent arithmetic random waves of same frequency on the 3-torus. For these quantities, we compute their expected value, asymptotic variance as well as …
We study the volume distribution of nodal domains of random band-limited functions on generic manifolds, and find that in the high energy limit a typical instance obeys a deterministic universal law, independent of the manifold. Some of the basic qualitative properties of this law, such as its support, monotonicity and continuity of the cumulative probability function, are established.
Consider an eigenvector of the adjacency matrix of a G(n, p) graph. A nodal domain is a connected component of the set of vertices where this eigenvector has a constant sign. It is known that with high probability, there are exactly two nodal domains for each eigenvector corresponding to a non-leading eigenvalue. We prove that with high probability, the sizes of these nodal domains are approximately equal to each other.
We initiate a systematic study of eigenvectors of random graphs. Whereas much is known about eigenvalues of graphs and how they reflect properties of the underlying graph, relatively little is known about the corresponding eigenvectors. Our main focus in this paper is on the nodal domains associated with the different eigenfunctions. In the analogous realm of Laplacians of Riemannian manifolds, nodal domains have been the subject of intensive research for well over a hundred years. Graphical nodal domains turn out to have interesting and unexpected properties. Our main theorem asserts that the…
In this survey we collect some of the recent results on the "nodal geometry" of random eigenfunctions on Riemannian surfaces. We focus on the asymptotic behavior, for high energy levels, of the nodal length of Gaussian Laplace eigenfunctions on the torus (arithmetic random waves) and on the sphere (random spherical harmonics). We give some insight on both Berry's cancellation phenomenon and the nature of nodal length second order fluctuations (non-Gaussian on the torus and Gaussian on the sphere) in terms of chaotic components. Finally we consider the general case of monochromatic random waves…
We study in depth the nesting graph and volume distribution of the nodal domains of a Gaussian field, which have been shown in previous works to exhibit asymptotic laws. A striking link is established between the asymptotic mean connectivity of a nodal domain (i.e.\ the vertex degree in its nesting graph) and the positivity of the percolation probability of the field, along with a direct dependence of the average nodal volume on the percolation probability. Our results support the prevailing ansatz that the mean connectivity and volume of a nodal domain is conserved for generic random fields i…
We investigate the asymptotic behavior of the nodal lines for random spherical harmonics restricted to shrinking domains, in the 2-dimensional case: i.e., the length of the zero set $\mathcal{Z}_{\ell,r_\ell} := \mathcal{Z}^{B_{r_{\ell}}}(T_\ell)=\text{len}(\{x \in \mathbb{S}^2 \cap B_{r_\ell}: T_\ell(x)=0 \})$, where $B_{r_{\ell}}$ is the spherical cap of radius $r_\ell$. We show that the variance of the nodal length is logarithmic in the high energy limit; moreover, it is asymptotically fully equivalent, in the $L^2$-sense, to the "local sample trispectrum", namely, the integral on the ball …
Assuming certain conditions on the spectral measures of centered stationary Gaussian processes on $\mathbb{R}$ (or ${\mathbb{R}}^2$), we show that the probability of the event that their zero count in an interval (resp., nodal length in a square domain) is larger than $n$, where $n$ is much larger than the expected value of the zero count in that interval (resp., nodal length in that square domain), is exponentially small in $n$.
We obtain the limiting distribution of the nodal area of random Gaussian Laplace eigenfunctions on $\mathbb{T}^3= \mathbb{R}^3/ \mathbb{Z}^3$ ($3$-dimensional 'arithmetic random waves'). We prove that, as the multiplicity of the eigenspace goes to infinity, the nodal area converges to a universal, non-Gaussian, distribution. Universality follows from the equidistribution of lattice points on the sphere. Our arguments rely on the Wiener chaos expansion of the nodal area: we show that, analogous to (Marinucci, Peccati, Rossi and Wigman, 2016), the fluctuations are dominated by the fourth-order c…
We study the absolute continuity with respect to the Lebesgue measure of the distribution of the nodal volume associated with a smooth, non-degenerated and stationary Gaussian field $(f(x), {x \in \mathbb R^d})$. Under mild conditions, we prove that in dimension $d\geq 3$, the distribution of the nodal volume has an absolutely continuous component plus a possible singular part. This singular part is actually unavoidable baring in mind that some Gaussian processes have a positive probability to keep a constant sign on some compact domain. Our strategy mainly consists in proving closed Kac--Rice…
