On the spectrum of Schrödinger operators with quasi-periodic algebro-geometric KdV poten\-tials (Q2565925)

Schrödinger operators \(H=-\frac{d^2}{dx^2} + V\) on \(\mathcal{L}^2 (0 , \infty)\) with a real-valued quasiperiodic potential \(V\), which satisfies a stationary KdV equation, lead to a finite band spectrum. If the potential \(V\) is periodic and complex-valued, the spectrum consists either of infinitely many simple analytic arcs or of finitely many analytic and one semi-infinite analytic arcs. The authors give a complete solution of the obvious extension of both problems, where \(V\) is complex-valued, quasiperiodic and satisfies a stationary KdV equation. Their main result characterizes the location of the spectrum \(\sigma (H)\) in terms of the diagonal of the Green function \(g(x,\lambda)\) of \(H\), \[ \sigma (H) = \{\lambda \in \mathbb{C} \mid \text{Re (mean value } g \;(\lambda ,.)^{-1}) = 0\}. \] From this all spectral results can be deduced. Thus, the spectrum of \(H\) is purely continuous and to each \(\lambda \in \sigma (H)\) there exists at least one bounded distributional solution. The location of \(\sigma (H)\) is a semistrip defined by Re\,\(V\) and Im\,\(V\). More precisely, \(\sigma (H)\) consist of finitely many simple analytic arcs and one semi-infinite arc. The location and crossing of these arcs is described explicitly in terms of characteristic numbers associated with \(g\). These results extend to \(\mathcal{L}^p (\mathbb{R})\) for \(p\geq 1\) as well, because \(V\) is assumed to be bounded. The proof is rather involved and technical. It uses extensively the hyper-elliptic Riemann surface associated to the stationary KdV equation. In two appendices, the background for all this is provided. In a third appendix the relation to Floquet theory is established and an example for \(n=1\) explicitly worked out.