An Introduction to Semiclassical and Microlocal Analysis

The following lecture notes correspond to a course taught for several years, first at the University of Paris-Nord (France) and then at the University of Bologna (Italy). They are mainly addressed to nonspecialists in the subject, and their purpose is to present in a pedagogical way most of the techniques used in the microlocal treatment of semiclassical problems coming from quantum physics. Both the standard Coo pseudodifferential calculus and the analytic microlocal analysis are developed, in a context that remains intentionally global so that only the relevant difficulties of the theory are encountered. The main original­ ity lies in the fact that we derive all the main features of analytic microlocal analysis from a single a priori estimate, which turns out to be elementary once the Coo pseudodifferential calculus is established. Various detailed exercises are given at the end of the main chapters, most of them being easily solvable by students. Besides illustrating the main results of the lecture, their aim is also to introduce the reader to various further developments of the theory, such as the functional calculus of pseudodifferential operators, properties of the analytic wave front set, Gevrey classes, the use of coherent states, the notion of semiclassical measures, WKB constructions. Applications to the study of the Schrodinger operator are also discussed in the text, so that they may help the understanding of new notions or general results where they appear by replacing them in the context of quantum mechanics.