Universal hierarchical structure of quasiperiodic eigenfunctions (Q1746446)

The almost Mathieu operator is a quasiperiodic Schrödinger operator on \(\ell^2(\mathbb{Z})\) \[ (H_{\lambda,\alpha,\theta}u)(n)=u(n+1)+u(n-1)+2\lambda\cos 2\pi(\theta+n\alpha)u(n), \] which is the central quasiperiodic model coming from physics. One of the main results of the paper concerns the exponential asymptotics of the generalized eigenfunctions \(\phi\) of \(H\) with generalized eigenvalue \(E\) \[ H\phi=E\phi, \quad |\phi(n)|\leq C(1+|n|), \] in the entire regime \[ |\lambda|>e^\beta, \quad \beta=\beta(\alpha):=\limsup_{n\to\infty}\frac{\log q_{n+1}}{q_n}\,, \] where \(p_n/q_n\) are the \(n\)-th convergents of a continued fraction approximation of \(\alpha\). For any irrational number \(\alpha\), the phase \(\theta\in(0,1)\) is said to be Diophantine with respect to \(\alpha\) if there exist \(\kappa>0\), \(\nu>0\) such that \[ \operatorname{dist}(2\theta+k\alpha, \mathbb{Z})>\frac{\kappa}{|k|^\nu}. \] Theorem. Let \(\alpha\) be an irrational number, \(E\) a generalized eigenvalue of \(H_{\lambda,\alpha,\theta}\), \(\phi\) the generalized eigenfunction, and \(|\lambda|>e^\beta\). Suppose \(\theta\) is Diophantine with respect to \(\alpha\). Then for any \(\varepsilon >0\) there is a constant \(K=K(\lambda,\alpha,C,\varepsilon,\kappa,\nu)\) such that for \(|k|\geq K\) the inequalities \[ f(|k|)e^{-\varepsilon |k|}\leq (|\phi(k-1)|^2+|\phi(k)|^2)^{1/2}\leq f(|k|)e^{\varepsilon |k|} \] hold. Here, \(f\) is an explicit function which depends on \(\alpha\) and \(\lambda\) (but not on \(\theta\) and \(E\)), which decays exponentially.