Cantor spectrum for Schrödinger operators with potentials arising from generalized skew-shifts

Abstract

We consider continuous $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$-cocycles over a strictly ergodic homeomorphism that fibers over an almost periodic dynamical system (generalized skew-shifts). We prove that any cocycle that is not uniformly hyperbolic can be approximated by one that is conjugate to an $\mathrm{SO}(2,\mathbb{R})$-cocycle. Using this, we show that if a cocycle's homotopy class does not display a certain obstruction to uniform hyperbolicity, then it can be $C^0$-perturbed to become uniformly hyperbolic. For cocycles arising from Schrödinger operators, the obstruction vanishes, and we conclude that uniform hyperbolicity is dense, which implies that for a generic continuous potential, the spectrum of the corresponding Schrödinger operator is a Cantor set