Regularized Potentials of Schr\"odinger Operators and a Local Landscape Function

Abstract

We study localization properties of low-lying eigenfunctions $$(-\Delta +V) \phi = \lambda \phi \qquad \mbox{in}~\Omega$$ for rapidly varying potentials $V$ in bounded domains $\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^d$. Filoche & Mayboroda introduced the landscape function $(-\Delta + V)u=1$ and showed that the function $u$ has remarkable properties: localized eigenfunctions prefer to localize in the local maxima of $u$. Arnold, David, Filoche, Jerison \& Mayboroda showed that $1/u$ arises naturally as the potential in a related equation. Motivated by these questions, we introduce a one-parameter family of regularized potentials $V_t$ that arise from convolving $V$ with the radial kernel $$ V_t(x) = V * \left( \frac{1}{t} \int_0^t \frac{ \exp\left( - \|\cdot\|^2/ (4s) \right)}{(4 \pi s )^{d/2}} ds \right).$$ We prove that for eigenfunctions $(-\Delta +V) \phi = \lambda \phi$ this regularization $V_t$ is, in a precise sense, the canonical effective potential on small scales. The landscape function $u$ respects the same type of regularization. This allows allows us to derive landscape-type functions out of solutions of the equation $(-\Delta + V)u = f$ for a general right-hand side $f:\Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R}_{>0}$.