Dynamical upper bounds on wavepacket spreading (Q4461889)

In the last 20 years the relation between asymptotics of eigenfunctions and spectral properties of the Hamiltonian has been elucidated by many mathematical physicists, notably these authors. In this paper, which can be considered a sequel to the results of \textit{A. Kiselev} and \textit{Y. Last} [Duke Math. J. 102, 125--150 (2000; Zbl 0951.35033)] this is extended to include the spreading of wave packets. This in turn determines the transport properties of media described by such operators. In this paper the authors restrict themselves to the case of one dimensional discrete Schrödinger operators. They show that a large part of a wave packet remains within a ball of radius \(L=L(T)\). \(L(T)\) in turn can be estimated in terms of a general scale \(L_{T^{-1}}\) depending on the energy. In additions they derive lower bounds on the wave packet spreading. These results for the half line operator can easily be extended to \(l^2 ({\mathbb{Z}})\) and to some extent to multidimensional operators. For the Fibonacci Hamiltonian rather sharp upper and lower bounds for the wave package spreading are derived by using combinatorial identities for its spectrum. In this case the spreading is intermediate between ballistic (linear) and localized (constant). The results are derived by analysis of the transfer matrices and \(m\)-function. Meanwhile these problems have been taken up by other authors too, e.g. \textit{Damanik}, \textit{Sülö} and \textit{Tcheremchantsev} [J. Funct. Anal. 216, 362--387 (2004)].