Geometric approach to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation and global parametrices for the Schrödinger propagator

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We construct a family of Fourier Integral Operators, defined for arbitrary large times, representing a global parametrix for the Schrödinger propagator when the potential is quadratic at infinity. This construction is based on the geometric approach to the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi equation and thus sidesteps the problem of the caustics generated by the classical flow. Moreover, a detailed study of the real phase function allows us to recover a WKB semiclassical approximation which necessarily involves the multivaluedness of the graph of the Hamiltonian flow past the caustics.