On the preservation of absolutely continuous spectrum for Schrödinger operators (Q2368768)

The author is interested in the preservation problem of an absolutely continuous spectrum under weak perturbations. Let \(H_1, H_2\) be two bounded self-adjoint operators in a Hilbert space \({\mathcal H}\). Let \(H\) be the \(2\) by \(2\) block matrix: \(H = D + \bar V\), where \(D\) is the diagonal matrix with the diagonal entries \(d_{11}= H_1\) and \(d_{22} = H_2\); \(\bar V\) is an off-diagonal matrix with all the diagonal entries being \(0\) and \(\bar v_{12} = V, \bar v_{21} = V^*\). The author consider \(H\) as the role of \(D\) under the perturbation \(\bar V\). A perturbation theory is developed to get the following result: If \(\sigma_{ess} (H_2) \subset [b, + \infty]\) and \([a, b] \subset \sigma_{ac} (H_1), (a < b)\). Then for any \(V \in {\mathcal T}^2, [a, b] \subset \sigma_{ac} (H)\), where \({\mathcal T}^2\) is the standard Schatten-von Neumann class of operators. This principle is used to get information of \(\sigma_{ac}\) of the continuous Schrödinger operator on a semi-infinite strip when the perturbation (potential) is decaying slowly at infinity. The second part of this article deals with the Schrödinger operator \(H = H_0 + V\) on the Caley tree (Bethe lattice) \({\mathcal B}\), where \(H_0\) is the discrete Laplace operator and \(V\) is the perturbation potential. It is known that \(\sigma (H_0) = [-2\sqrt {2}, 2 \sqrt{2}]\). A class of potentials \(V\) is given to conclude that \(\sigma (H_0) = \sigma_{ac} (H | _{{\mathcal B}_O}) \subset \sigma_{ac} (H)\), where \(O\) is a fixed vertex, which is connected to its neighbors by three edges, \({\mathcal B}_O\) is what is left from deleting one edge together with the corresponding part of the tree stemming from \(O\). The tool used in this part is the theory of orthogonal polynomials on the unit circle and on the real line.