Absolutely continuous spectrum for 1D quasiperiodic operators. (Q1608578)

The authors consider a quasiperiodic operator \(\widetilde H_{\omega,\lambda,\theta}\) acting on \(l^2(\mathbb{Z})\) given by \[ (\widetilde H_{\omega,\lambda,\theta}\Psi)(n)=\Psi(n+1)+\Psi(n-1)+\frac{1}{\lambda}f(\omega n+\theta)\Psi(n), \] where \(f(\theta)\) is an analytic 1-periodic function, in the regime of small coupling (large \(\lambda\)). A number \(\omega\) is called Diophantine if there exist \(c(\omega)>0\) and \(1<r(\omega)<\infty\) such that \(\| j\omega/2\| >\frac {c (\omega)}{| j}|^{{r}(\omega)}\) for all \(j\neq 0\), where \(\| \cdot\|\) denotes distance to the integers. The main result of the paper under review is the following Theorem. For any real analytic \(f\) there exists \(\lambda_0(f)\) such that for \(\lambda>\lambda_0\), any Diophantine \(\omega\) and a.e., \(\theta\in \mathbb{R}\), the operator \(\widetilde H_{\omega,\lambda,\theta}\) has a purely absolutely continuous spectrum. The proof uses the strategy of \textit{S. Ya. Jitomerskaya} [Ann. Math. (2) 150, 1159--1175 (1999; Zbl 0946.47018] and the purely absolutely continuous spectrum is deduced by duality from the pure point spectrum for the dual model.