On resonances and the formation of gaps in the spectrum of quasi-periodic Schrödinger equations (Q640745)

The following quasi-periodic Schrödinger equations \[ [H(x,\omega)\varphi](n)\equiv -\varphi(n-1)-\varphi(n+1)+V(x+n\omega)\varphi(n)=E\varphi(n) \] are considered, where \(n\in\mathbb{Z}\), \(\omega\in[0,1]\) and \(V\) is a 1-periodic real-analytic function. The main aim of the paper is to find the formation of a dense set of gaps in \(\operatorname{spec}(H(x,\omega))\cap (E',E'')\). To establish the result, the authors use an approach, which is based on an induction on scales argument. It is shown that resonances between eigenfunctions of one scale lead to `pre-gaps' at a larger scale. To pass to actual gaps in the spectrum, it is established that these pre-gaps cannot be filled more than a finite (and uniformly bounded) number of times. To accomplish this, one relates a pre-gap to pairs of complex zeros of the Dirichlet determinants off the unit circle. Moreover, a nonperturbative version of the co-variant parametrization of the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions is proved by means of Sinai's description of the spectrum. This allows the authors to relate the gaps in the spectrum with the graphs of the eigenvalues parametrized by the phase.