We prove eigenvalue asymptotics and concentration of eigenfunctions of the Laplace-Beltrami operator for certain singular Riemannian metrics. This is motivated by the study of propagation of soundwaves in gas planets. The talk is based on joint works with Yves Colin de Verdière, Maarten de Hoop and Emmanuel Trélat, and with Larry Read.

Consider a particle randomly moving in a bounded (planar) domain starting at any given point within. Assume it bounces against the boundary and consider $\Sigma$, a small part of that boundary. What is the expected time we need to wait before the particle hits $\Sigma$ ? This question is known as the narrow escape problem. We can also consider the related question : what is the probability that the particle hits $\Sigma$ before another given subset of the boundary $\Gamma$ ? In this talk, I will address these questions and give quantitative answers in the asymptotic regime where the lengths of the windows tend to 0. To tackle the problem, I will prove a Feynman-Kac formula, lincking the stochastic process studied with a deterministic PDE which has the form of a Poisson equation with mixed boundary conditions. Then, constructing appropriate quasimodes to this PDE, we are able to derive sharp asymptotics for the expected time and probabilities.

Quantum mechanics is well approximated by classical physics when Planck's constant is considered small, i.e., in the semi-classical limit. Typically, one can study an observable associated with a particle, such as its momentum or its position, and show that its dynamics is given by classical dynamics at first order, with corrections of the order of Planck's constant. In this talk, I will present more precisely the concept of semi-classical limits, the standard mathematical results known for non-relativistic quantum mechanics, and my work that concerns the semi-classical limit in the context of relativistic quantum mechanics. Concretely, I will show how to adapt the modulated energy method to the Klein-Gordon and Klein-Gordon-Maxwell equations and how to recover relativistic mechanics (instead of classical mechanics) at the semi-classical limit.