Sums of regular Cantor sets of large dimension and the Square Fibonacci Hamiltonian

We show that under natural technical conditions, the sum of a $C^2$ dynamically defined Cantor set with a compact set in most cases (for almost all parameters) has positive Lebesgue measure, provided that the sum of the Hausdorff dimensions of these sets exceeds one. As an application, we show that for many parameters, the Square Fibonacci Hamiltonian has spectrum of positive Lebesgue measure, while at the same time the density of states measure is purely singular.Comment: 13 page

Hyperbolicity of the Trace Map for the Weakly Coupled Fibonacci Hamiltonian

We consider the trace map associated with the Fibonacci Hamiltonian as a diffeomorphism on the invariant surface associated with a given coupling constant and prove that the non-wandering set of this map is hyperbolic if the coupling is sufficiently small. As a consequence, for these values of the coupling constant, the local and global Hausdorff dimension and the local and global box counting dimension of the spectrum of the Fibonacci Hamiltonian all coincide and are smooth functions of the coupling constant.Comment: 20 page

Absolutely Continuous Convolutions of Singular Measures and an Application to the Square Fibonacci Hamiltonian

We prove for the square Fibonacci Hamiltonian that the density of states measure is absolutely continuous for almost all pairs of small coupling constants. This is obtained from a new result we establish about the absolute continuity of convolutions of measures arising in hyperbolic dynamics with exact-dimensional measures.Comment: 28 pages, to appear in Duke Math.