Kotani theory for one dimensional stochastic Jacobi matrices (Q790536)

\textit{S. Kotani} [Lyapunov indices determine absolutely continuous spectra of stationary random one-dimensional Schrödinger operators. Proc. Kyoto Stoch. Conf. 1982] recently proved three remarkable theorem on one- dimensional Schrödinger operators with stochastic potentials. The paper under review proves the analogs of these theorems for stochastic Jacobi matrices (in physical terms: the tight binding approximation). The first two theorems say that the Lyapunov index \(\gamma\) (E) determines the absolutely continuous spectrum \(\sigma_{ac}\) of the operator. The third theorem states that \(\gamma>0\) and thus \(\sigma_{ac}=\emptyset\) if the potential \(V_{\omega}(n)\) is non-deterministic. The proof follows the strategy of Kotani's paper, while a series of non trivial changements in the details is necessary.