Tridiagonal substitution Hamiltonians

We consider a family of discrete Jacobi operators on the one-dimensional integer lattice with Laplacian and potential terms modulated by a primitive invertible two-letter substitution. We investigate the spectrum and the spectral type, the fractal structure and fractal dimensions of the spectrum, exact dimensionality of the integrated density of states, and the gap structure. We present a review of previous results, some applications, and open problems. Our investigation is based largely on the dynamics of trace maps. This work is an extension of similar results on Schroedinger operators, although some of the results that we obtain differ qualitatively and quantitatively from those for the Schoedinger operators. The nontrivialities of this extension lie in the dynamics of the associated trace map as one attempts to extend the trace map formalism from the Schroedinger cocycle to the Jacobi one. In fact, the Jacobi operators considered here are, in a sense, a test item, as many other models can be attacked via the same techniques, and we present an extensive discussion on this.Comment: 41 pages, 5 figures, 81 reference

New Anomalous Lieb-Robinson Bounds in Quasi-Periodic XY Chains

We announce and sketch the rigorous proof of a new kind of anomalous (or sub-ballistic) Lieb-Robinson bound for an isotropic XY chain in a quasi-periodic transversal magnetic field. By "anomalous", we mean that the usual effective light cone defined by $|x|\leq v|t|$ is replaced by the region $|x|\leq v|t|^\alpha$ for some $0<\alpha<1$. In fact, we can characterize exactly the values of $\alpha$ for which this holds as those exceeding the upper transport exponent $\alpha_u^+$ of an appropriate one-body discrete Schr\"odinger operator. Previous study has produced a good amount of quantitative information on $\alpha_u^+$. The result is obtained by mapping to free fermions, obtaining good dynamical bounds on the one-body level by adapting techniques developed by Damanik, Gorodetski, Tcheremchantsev, and Yessen and then "pulling back" these bounds through the non-local Jordan-Wigner transformation, following an idea of Hamza, Sims, and Stolz. To our knowledge, this is the first rigorous derivation of anomalous many-body transport. We also explain why our method does not extend to yield anomalous LR bounds of power-law type if one replaces the quasi-periodic field by a random dimer field.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

On Anomalous Lieb-Robinson Bounds for the Fibonacci XY Chain

We rigorously prove a new kind of anomalous (or sub-ballistic) Lieb-Robinson bound for the isotropic XY chain with Fibonacci external magnetic field at arbitrary coupling. It is anomalous in that the usual exponential decay in $x-vt$ is replaced by exponential decay in $x-vt^\alpha$ with $0<\alpha<1$. In fact, we can characterize the values of $\alpha$ for which such a bound holds as those exceeding $\alpha_u^+$, the upper transport exponent of the one-body Fibonacci Hamiltonian. Following the approach of \cite{HSS11}, we relate Lieb-Robinson bounds to dynamical bounds for the one-body Hamiltonian corresponding to the XY chain via the Jordan-Wigner transformation; in our case the one-body Hamiltonian with Fibonacci potential. We can bound its dynamics by adapting techniques developed in \cite{DT07, DT08, D05, DGY} to our purposes. We also explain why our method does not extend to yield anomalous Lieb-Robinson bounds of power-law type for the random dimer model.Comment: 21 pages, Final version to appear in J. Spectr. Theor

Characterizations of Uniform Hyperbolicity and Spectra of CMV Matrices

We provide an elementary proof of the equivalence of various notions of uniform hyperbolicity for a class of $\mathrm{GL}(2,\mathbb{C})$ cocycles and establish a Johnson-type theorem for extended CMV matrices, relating the spectrum to the points on the unit circle for which the associated Szeg\H{o} cocycle is not uniformly hyperbolic.Comment: 15 pages; based on the appendices of arXiv:1404.7065, which were removed in passing from arXiv:1404.7065v1 to arXiv:1404.7065v2, the latter being the version accepted for publication in IMR