Absolutely continuous cocycles over irrational rotations (Q690044)

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the spectral properties of ergodic transformations, and many new examples have been studied. In this paper, the authors study some fairly classical examples, first considered by \textit{H. Anzai} [Osaka J. Math. 3, 83-99 (1951; Zbl 0043.112)] and now called Anzai skew products. Let \(S^ 1\) be the unit circle and \(T: S^ 1\to S^ 1\), \(Tz= z\cdot e^{2\pi i\alpha}\), an irrational rotation. Let \(\phi: S^ 1\to S^ 1\) be measurable and define \(T_ \phi: S^ 1\times S^ 1\to S^ 1\times S^ 1\) by \[ T_ \phi(z,w)= (Tz,\phi(z)w). \] Denote by \(d(\phi)\) the degree of \(\phi\), where \(\phi\) is a smooth map. It was shown by \textit{P. Gabriel}, the second author and \textit{P. Liardet} [Mem. Soc. Math. Fr., Nouv. Sér. 47, 102 p. (1991; Zbl 0754.28011)] that if \(d(\phi)\neq 0\) and \(\widetilde\phi\) (the periodic extension of \(\phi\) to \({\mathbf R}\)) is absolutely continuous, then the maximal spectral type of \(T_ \phi\) is singular. In this paper, it is shown that for non-zero degree, quite the opposite happens, i.e., if \(\widetilde\phi\) is absolutely continuous and \(\widetilde\phi'\) is of bounded variation and \(d(\phi)\neq 0\), then \(T_ \phi\) has countable Lebesgue spectrum in the orthocomplement of the eigenfunctions of \(T\). Some related results are given.