William Yessen

The Fibonacci Hamiltonian

We consider the Fibonacci Hamiltonian, the central model in the study of electronic properties of one-dimensional quasicrystals, and establish relations between its spectrum and spectral characteristics (namely, the optimal Hölder exponent of the integrated density of states, the dimension of the density of states measure, the dimension of the spectrum, and the upper transport exponent) and the dynamical properties of the Fibonacci trace map (such as dimensional characteristics of the non-wandering hyperbolic set and its measure of maximal entropy as well as other equilibrium measures, topological entropy, multipliers of periodic orbits). We also exhibit a connection between the spectral quantities and the thermodynamic pressure function. As a result, a detailed description of the spectral properties for all values of the coupling constant is obtained (in contrast to all previous quantitative results, which could be established only in the regime of small or large coupling). In particular, we show that the spectrum of this operator is a dynamically defined Cantor set and that the density of states measure is exact-dimensional; this implies that all standard fractal dimensions coincide in each case. We show that all the gaps of the spectrum allowed by the gap labeling theorem are open for all values of the coupling constant. Also, we establish strict inequalities between the four spectral characteristics in question, and provide the exact large coupling asymptotics of the dimension of the density of states measure (for the other three quantities, the large coupling asymptotics were known before).

Spectral analysis of tridiagonal Fibonacci Hamiltonians

We consider a family of discrete Jacobi operators on the one-dimensional integer lattice, with the diagonal and the off-diagonal entries given by two sequences generated by the Fibonacci substitution on two letters. We show that the spectrum is a Cantor set of zero Lebesgue measure, and discuss its fractal structure and Hausdorff dimension. We also extend some known results on the diagonal and the off-diagonal Fibonacci Hamiltonians.

Quantum Dynamics of Periodic and Limit-Periodic Jacobi and Block Jacobi Matrices with Applications to Some Quantum Many Body Problems

We investigate quantum dynamics with the underlying Hamiltonian being a Jacobi or a block Jacobi matrix with the diagonal and the off-diagonal terms modulated by a periodic or a limit-periodic sequence. In particular, we investigate the transport exponents. In the periodic case we demonstrate ballistic transport, while in the limit-periodic case we discuss various phenomena, such as quasi-ballistic transport and weak dynamical localization. We also present applications to some quantum many body problems. In particular, we establish for the anisotropic XY chain on

New Anomalous Lieb-Robinson Bounds in Quasiperiodic XY Chains

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On anomalous Lieb–Robinson bounds for the Fibonacci XY chain

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CHARACTERIZATIONS OF UNIFORM HYPERBOLICITY AND SPECTRA OF CMV MATRICES

We consider CMV matrices with Verblunsky coefficients determined in an appropriate way by the Fibonacci sequence and present two applications of the spectral theory of such matrices to problems in mathematical physics. In our first application we estimate the spreading rates of quantum walks on the line with time-independent coins following the Fibonacci sequence. The estimates we obtain are explicit in terms of the parameters of the system. In our second application, we establish a connection between the classical nearest neighbor Ising model on the one-dimensional lattice in the complex magnetic field regime, and CMV operators. In particular, given a sequence of nearest-neighbor interaction couplings, we construct a sequence of Verblunsky coefficients, such that the support of the Lee-Yang zeros of the partition function for the Ising model in the thermodynamic limit coincides with the essential spectrum of the CMV matrix with the constructed Verblunsky coefficients. Under certain technical conditions, we also show that the zeros distribution measure coincides with the density of states measure for the CMV matrix.

Uniform Hyperbolicity for Szegő Cocycles and Applications to Random CMV Matrices and the Ising Model

We announce and sketch the rigorous proof of a new kind of anomalous (or sub-ballistic) Lieb-Robinson (LR) bound for an isotropic XY chain in a quasiperiodic transversal magnetic field. Instead of the usual effective light cone |x|≤v|t|, we obtain |x|≤v|t|α for some 0<α<1. We can characterize the allowed values of α exactly as those exceeding the upper transport exponent αu+ of a one-body Schrödinger operator. To our knowledge, this is the first rigorous derivation of anomalous quantum many-body transport. We also discuss anomalous LR bounds with power-law tails for a random dimer field.

Tridiagonal Substitution Hamiltonians

For the square tridiagonal Fibonacci Hamiltonian, we prove existence of an open set of parameters which yield mixed interval-Cantor spectra (i.e. spectra containing an interval as well as a Cantor set), as well as mixed density of states measure (i.e. one whose absolutely continuous and singular continuous components are both nonzero). Using the methods developed in this paper, we also show existence of parameter regimes for the square continuum Fibonacci Schrodinger operator yielding mixed interval-Cantor spectra. These examples provide the first explicit examples of an interesting phenomenon that has not hitherto been observed in aperiodic Hamiltonians. Moreover, while we focus only on the Fibonacci model, our techniques are equally applicable to models based on any two-letter primitive invertible substitution.