The perturbatively stable spectrum of a periodic Schrödinger operator (Q914039)

The spectrum of -\(\Delta\) on a flat torus \({\mathbb{R}}^ d/\Gamma\), \(\Gamma\) a lattice in \({\mathbb{R}}^ d\), is \(\{b\in {\mathbb{R}}^ d|\) \(<b,\gamma >\in 2\pi {\mathbb{Z}}\) for all \(\gamma\in \Gamma \}\). We investigate how this spectrum changes when a \(\Gamma\)-periodic function V(x) with average zero is added to the operator -\(\Delta\). It turns out that for a generic two- or three-dimensional lattice most of the eigenvalues \(| b|^ 2\) of -\(\Delta\) only change an amount of order \(O(| b|^{- 2+\epsilon})\), where \(\epsilon\) is small depending on the regularity of V(x). We call these eigenvalues ``perturbatively stable'' with respect to V. On the other hand for any \(V\not\equiv 0\) there are infinitely many eigenvalues of -\(\Delta\) on \({\mathbb{R}}^ d/\Gamma\) that are not perturbatively stable.