Ballistic Transport for Discrete Multi-Dimensional Schr\"odinger Operators With Decaying Potential

TL;DR

This paper proves ballistic transport for discrete Schrödinger operators with decaying potentials, showing the absence of singular continuous spectrum and quantifying transport rates in arbitrary lattice dimensions.

Contribution

It extends classical results by demonstrating ballistic transport and absence of singular continuous spectrum for operators with decaying potentials using commutator and Mourre estimates.

Findings

Absence of singular continuous spectrum for the operator.

Ballistic transport rate grows proportionally to t^r.

Extension of results to perturbed operators with decaying potentials.

Abstract

We consider the discrete Schr\"odinger operator $H = -\Delta + V$ on $\ell^2(\mathbb{Z}^d)$ with a decaying potential, in arbitrary lattice dimension $d\in\mathbb{N}^*$, where $\Delta$ is the standard discrete Laplacian and $V_n = o(|n|^{-1})$ as $|n| \to \infty$. We prove the absence of singular continuous spectrum for $H$. For the unitary evolution $e^{-i tH}$, we prove that it exhibits ballistic transport in the sense that, for any $r > 0$, the weighted $\ell^2-$norm $$\|e^{-i tH}u\|_r:=\left(\sum_{n\in\mathbb{Z}^d} (1+|n|^2)^{r} |(e^{-i tH}u)_n|^2\right)^\frac12 $$ grows at rate $\simeq t^r$ as $t\to \infty$, provided that the initial state $u$ is in the absolutely continuous subspace and satisfies $\|u\|_r<\infty$. The proof relies on commutator methods and a refined Mourre estimate, which yields quantitative lower bounds on transport for operators with purely absolutely continuous spectrum over appropriate spectral intervals. Compactness arguments and localized spectral projections are used to extend the result to perturbed operators, extending the classical result for the free Laplacian to a broader class of decaying potentials.