This extended Oberwolfach report (to appear in the proceedings of the MFO Workshop 2335: Aspects of Aperiodic Order) announces the full solution to the Dry Ten Martini Problem for Sturmian Hamiltonians. Specifically, we show that all spectral gaps of Sturmian Hamiltonians (as predicted by the gap labeling theorem) are open for all nonzero couplings and all irrational rotations. We present here the proof strategy.

Let H be a generalized Schrödinger operator on a domain of a non-compact connected Riemannian manifold, and a generalized eigenfunction u for H: that is, u satisfies the equation Hu = λu in the weak sense but is not necessarily in L². The problem is to find conditions on the growth of u, so that λ belongs to the spectrum of H. We unify and generalize known results on this problem. In addition, a variety of examples is provided, illustrating the different nature of the growth conditions.

A characterization of the essential spectrum of Schrödinger operators on infinite graphs is derived involving the concept of R-limits. This concept, which was introduced previously for operators on the natural numbers and the d-dimensional integer lattice as “right-limits,” captures the behaviour of the operator at infinity. For graphs with sub-exponential growth rate, we show that each point in the essential spectrum of H corresponds to a bounded generalized eigenfunction of a corresponding R-limit of H. If, additionally, the graph is of uniform sub-exponential growth, also the converse inclusion holds.

This work provides a necessary and sufficient condition for a symbolic dynamical system to admit a sequence of periodic approximations in the Hausdorff topology. The key result proved and applied here uses graphs that are called De Bruijn graphs, Rauzy graphs, or Anderson–Putnam complex, depending on the community. Combining this with a previous result, the present work justifies rigorously the accuracy and reliability of algorithmic methods used to compute numerically the spectra of a large class of self-adjoint operators. The so-called Hamiltonians describe the effective dynamic of a quantum particle in aperiodic media. No restrictions on the structure of these operators other than general regularity assumptions are imposed. In particular, nearest-neighbor correlation is not necessary. Examples for the Fibonacci and the Golay–Rudin–Shapiro sequences are explicitly provided illustrating this discussion. While the first sequence has been thoroughly studied by physicists and mathematicians alike, a shroud of mystery still surrounds the latter when it comes to spectral properties. In light of this, the present paper gives a new result here that might help uncovering a solution.

We study the spectral location of strongly pattern equivariant Hamiltonians arising through configurations on a colored lattice. Roughly speaking, two configurations are "close to each other" if, up to a translation, they "almost coincide" on a large fixed ball. The larger this ball is, the more similar they are, and this induces a metric on the space of the corresponding dynamical systems. Our main result states that the map which sends a given configuration into the spectrum of its associated Hamiltonian, is Hölder (even Lipschitz) continuous in the usual Hausdorff metric. Specifically, the spectral distance of two Hamiltonians is estimated by the distance of the corresponding dynamical systems.

A correct statement of Theorem 4 in [1] is provided. The change does not affect the main results.

In the realm of Delone sets in locally compact, second countable Hausdorff groups, we develop a dynamical systems approach in order to study the continuity behavior of measured quantities arising from point sets. A special focus is both on the autocorrelation, as well as on the density of states for random bounded operators. It is shown that for uniquely ergodic limit systems, the latter measures behave continuously with respect to the Chabauty–Fell convergence of hulls. In the special situation of Euclidean spaces, our results complement recent developments in describing spectra as topological limits: we show that the measured quantities under consideration can be approximated via periodic analogs.

Let H be a Schrödinger operator defined on a noncompact Riemannian manifold Ω, and let W∈L∞(Ω;R). Suppose that the operator H+W is critical in Ω, and let φ be the corresponding Agmon ground state. We prove that if u is a generalized eigenfunction of H satisfying |u|≤φ in Ω, then the corresponding eigenvalue is in the spectrum of H. The conclusion also holds true if for some K⋐Ω the operator H admits a positive solution in Ω'=Ω∖K, and |u|≤ψ in Ω', where ψ is a positive solution of minimal growth in a neighborhood of infinity in Ω.
Under natural assumptions, this result holds true also in the context of infinite graphs, and Dirichlet forms.

How does the spectrum of a Schrödinger operator vary if the corresponding geometry and dynamics change? Is it possible to define approximations of the spectrum of such operators by defining approximations of the underlying structures? In this work a positive answer is provided using the rather general setting of groupoid C*-algebras. A characterization of the convergence of the spectra by the convergence of the underlying structures is proved. In order to do so, the concept of continuous field of groupoids is slightly extended by adding continuous fields of cocycles. With this at hand, magnetic Schrödinger operators on dynamical systems or Delone systems fall into this unified setting. Various approximations used in computational physics, like the periodic or the finite cluster approximations, are expressed through the tautological groupoid, which provides a universal model for fields of groupoids. The use of the Hausdorff topology turns out to be fundamental in understanding why and how these approximations work.

We consider equivariant continuous families of discrete one-dimensional operators over arbitrary dynamical systems. We introduce the concept of a pseudo-ergodic element of a dynamical system. We then show that all operators associated to pseudo-ergodic elements have the same spectrum and that this spectrum agrees with their essential spectrum. As a consequence we obtain that the spectrum is constant and agrees with the essential spectrum for all elements in the dynamical system if minimality holds.

It is well known that, given an equivariant and continuous (in a suitable sense) family of selfadjoint operators in a Hilbert space over a minimal dynamical system, the spectrum of all operators from that family coincides. As shown recently similar results also hold for suitable families of non-selfadjoint operators in ℓ^p(ℤ). Here, we generalize this to a large class of bounded linear operator families on Banach-space valued ℓ^p-spaces over countable discrete groups. We also provide equality of the pseudospectra for operators in such a family. A main tool for our analysis are techniques from limit operator theory.

Given a family of self-adjoint operators (A_t)_t∈T indexed by a parameter t in some topological space T, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the spectrum σ(A_t) to be Vietoris continuous with respect to t. Equivalently the boundaries and the gap edges are continuous in t. If (T,d) is a complete metric space with metric d, these conditions are extended to guarantee Hölder continuity of the spectral boundaries and of the spectral gap edges. As a corollary, an upper bound is provided for the size of closing gaps.

We study one-dimensional random Jacobi operators corresponding to strictly ergodic dynamical systems. We characterize the spectrum of these operators via non-uniformity of the transfer matrices and vanishing of the Lyapunov exponent. For aperiodic, minimal subshifts satisfying the so-called Boshernitzan condition this gives that the spectrum is supported on a Cantor set with Lebesgue measure zero. This generalizes earlier results for Schrödinger operators.