On the spectrum of the Kronig-Penney model in a constant electric field (Q2154637)

In this massive paper the authors investigate the spectrum of the self-adjoint operator \(L_{F,\lambda}\), associated in \(L^2(\mathbb{R})\) with \[ - u''+ \left[\sum_{n\in\mathbb{Z}} \lambda\delta(x- n)-Fx\right] u= Eu,\tag{1} \] i.e., with the eigenvalue equation \[ - u"- Fxu= Eu\tag{2} \] and the jump conditions \[ J u (n)= 0,\quad Ju'(n)=\lambda u(n)\text{ at }n\in\mathbb{Z}.\tag{3} \] If \(F\) and \(\lambda\) are both nonzero (otherwise the spectrum is known to be purely absolutely continuous as the full real line or as the union of bands, separated by infinitely many gaps) and without loss of generality \(F>0\) they prove the following Theorem: Let \(p\), \(q\in\mathbb{N}\) be relatively prime and \(F= \pi^2q/(3p)\). Then, outside a discrete set of exceptional energies (which can explicitly be specified), the spectrum of \(L_{F,\lambda}\) is purely absolutely continuous. The idea of proof is to show that all solutions of (2), (3) are ``equally large'' at \(\pm\infty\), in which case the Gilbert-Pearson subordinacy theory guarantees that the singular continuous spectrum is empty. The general solution of (2) is known to be given by Airy functions. In order to control the influence of (3), Prüfer variables are introduced, and the difficulty consists in finding the precise asymptotic behaviour of the Prüfer radius \(R(n)\) as \(n\) tends to infinity. It is here that the rationality condition on \(F\) enters (see in particular \textsection{7} of the paper). The authors emphasise that ``the bulk of our analysis is valid without it and we expect this part to play an important role in any future advances in the irrational case.'' In tandem the authors also consider the case when \(\lambda\) in (1) and (3) is replaced by independent identically distributed copies \(g_n(\omega)\) of a random variable \(X\) with \(\mathbb{E}_\omega(|x|^4)<\infty\). In this simpler case \[ \lim_{n\to\infty}\ [\log R(n)/\log n=- \lambda^2/(8F), \] where \(\lambda^2>0\) is the variance of the \(g_n\), and the spectrum is almost surely singular continuous if \(F>\frac{1}{2}\lambda^2\) and almost surely a dense pure point spectrum if \(F<\frac{1}{2}\lambda^2\).