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Let $A$ be a selfadjoint operator on some Hilbert space $H$, let $U(t)=e^{itA}$ be the corresponding continuous group, and let $f\in H$ be orthogonal to all eigenvectors of $A$. Are there examples such that $U(t)f$ does not converge weakly to 0 as $t\to+\infty$?

(From the RAGE Theorem, if $K$ is a compact operator on $H$ and $f$ as above, then $$ \lim_{T\to+\infty}\frac1T\int_0^T\|KU(t)f\|_H^2dt=0. $$ This implies $\liminf_{t\to+\infty}\|KU(t)f\|_H=0$ and suggests weak convergence of $U(t)f$ to 0, at least for suitable sequences of times.)

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The answer is yes.

A measure-preserving invertible shift $T: X \to X$ on a probability space $(X,\mu)$ is said to be weakly mixing if $\lim_{N \to \infty} \frac{1}{N} \sum_{n=1}^N |\langle f \circ T^{-n}, g \rangle|^2 = 0$ for all $f,g$ in the Hilbert space $L^2(X)_0$ of mean zero square-integrable functions, and strongly mixing if $\lim_{n \to \infty} |\langle f \circ T^{-n}, g \rangle| = 0$ for all such functions. (The minus sign is not important here, and one can replace $T^{-n}$ by $T^n$ if one wishes.) There are examples of systems that are weakly mixing but not strongly mixing; see for instance this previous MathOverflow post for some examples (indeed in certain technical senses a "generic" shift is of this form). Note that weakly mixing shifts have no eigenfunctions in $L^2(X)_0$ (indeed this is an if and only if, by the discrete version of the RAGE theorem).

Such systems $(X,\mu,T)$ are discrete flows, but they can be converted into continuous flows by the standard device of taking a suspension. Namely, let $\tilde X$ be $X \times {\bf R}/\sim$ where we quotient by the equivalence relation $(x,t) \sim (T^{-n} x, t+n)$ and endow this space with the product measure $\tilde \mu$ of $\mu$ and Lebesgue measure on the unit interval, and the continuous shift $\tilde T^t (x,s) := (x,s+t)$. If one then lets $H \equiv L^2([0,1]; L^2(X)_0)$ be the Hilbert space of functions $f \in L^2(\tilde X)$ that are of mean zero on every time slice $X \times \{t\}$, and lets $U(t): H \to H$ be the Koopman operator $U(t) f(x,s) := f \circ \tilde T^{-t}(x,s) = f(x,s-t)$, one can easily verify that $U(t)$ is a strongly continuous unitary flow (and thus of the form $e^{itA}$ by Stone's theorem) that has no eigenfunctions, but such that $U(t)$ fails to weakly converge to zero (even if we restrict $t$ to the integers, in which case the continuous flow basically collapses back to the discrete flow $T^n$).

UPDATE: Here is another example. Let $\mu$ be an atomless compactly supported probability measure on ${\bf R}$ whose Fourier transform does not decay to zero at infinity (for instance one can take the standard Cantor set measure). If we let $U(t): L^2(\mu) \to L^2(\mu)$ be the modulation flow $U(t) f(x) = e^{itx} f(x)$, then the flow has no eigenfunctions (because of the atomless condition) but $U(t) 1$ does not converge weakly to zero (because $\langle U(t) 1, 1 \rangle$ is basically the Fourier transform of $\mu$).

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  • $\begingroup$ Excellent, this settles the question. When $A$ is a PDO, convergence to 0 usually follows from local energy decay; I was hoping for some more abstract result in the spirit of RAGE, but of course the general case is hopeless $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 2, 2022 at 16:56
  • $\begingroup$ I'm surprised that the answer is involves so many words and symbols. With a simple 2x2 matrix for $A$ and $f$ being the vector [1;0], we have $U(t)f$ oscillating forever w.r.t. $t$ (i.e. not decaying to 0). Can we not just give an example of an $A$ and $f$ with $f$ orthogonal to all eigenstates of $A$ in which $U(t)f$ doesn't decay to 0? $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 2, 2022 at 18:06
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    $\begingroup$ @NikeDattani By the spectral theorem for unitary matrices, it is not possible for a non-zero vector to be orthogonal to all eigenstates in a finite dimensional system. $\endgroup$
    – Terry Tao
    Commented Nov 2, 2022 at 18:11
  • $\begingroup$ A factor $1/N$ is missing in the definition of weakly mixing. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 2, 2022 at 18:14
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    $\begingroup$ @PieroD'Ancona The enemy is singular continuous spectrum; if $A$ only has pure point and absolutely continuous spectrum then one can get strong mixing from the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma. There are certainly PDO type operators with singular continuous spectrum (cf. the Hofstadter butterfly) so I doubt there is an easy general way to enforce a strong RAGE theorem in general (one would have to prevent the singular continuous spectrum from having enough arithmetic structure to have non-decaying Fourier coefficients). $\endgroup$
    – Terry Tao
    Commented Nov 2, 2022 at 18:22

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