Some Schrödinger operators with power-decaying potentials and pure point spectrum (Q1363168)

The author constructs power-decaying potentials \(V(x)= O(x^{-c})\), \(c>0\), such that the Schrödinger equation \[ - y''(x)+ V(x) y(x)= k^2y(x), \] \(x\in [0,\infty)\), has square integrable solutions for almost all \(k>0\) with respect to Lebesgue measure. This implies that the corresponding Hamiltonian \(H_\alpha= -d^2/dx^2+ V(x)\) with the boundary condition \[ y(0)\cos\alpha+ y'(0)\sin\alpha= 0 \] has a dense pure point spectrum in \((0,\infty)\) for almost all \(\alpha\in[0,\pi)\). The potentials \(V(x)\) are constructed as follows: For \(n\geq 1\), let \(L_n\) be a natural number, let \(g_n\) be a positive number, let \(r_n\) be a nonnegative number. Let \(W(x)\) be a bounded, measurable and periodic function with period \(p\). For \(n\geq 1\), define \(a_1= 0\), \(b_n= a_n+ p(L_n/g_n)\), \(a_{n+ 1}= b_n+ r_n\). Take \(V(x)= 0\) if \(x\in (b_n, a_{n+1})\), \(V(x)= g^2_n W(g_n(x- a_n))\) if \(x\in(a_n, b_n)\). It is shown that \(L_n\), \(g_n\), \(r_n\) and \(W(x)\) can be chosen so that \(V(x)\) has the desired properties. Also, power-decaying potentials are constructed with purely singular continuous spectrum in \((0,\infty)\) for all boundary conditions.