Spectral Gaps of Almost Mathieu Operator in Exponential Regime

For almost Mathieu operator $(H_{\lambda,\alpha,\theta}u)_n=u_{n+1}+u_{n-1}+2\lambda \cos2\pi(\theta+n\alpha)u_n$, the dry version of Ten Martini problem predicts that the spectrum $\Sigma_{\lambda,\alpha}$ of $H_{\lambda,\alpha,\theta}$ has all gaps open for all $\lambda\neq 0$ and $\alpha \in \mathbb{R}\backslash \mathbb{Q}$. Avila and Jitomirskaya prove that $\Sigma_{\lambda,\alpha}$ has all gaps open for Diophantine $\alpha$ and $0<|\lambda|<1$. In the present paper, we show that $\Sigma_{\lambda,\alpha}$ has all gaps open for all $\alpha \in \mathbb{R}\backslash \mathbb{Q}$ with small $\lambda$.