Piecewise Absolutely Continuous Cocycles Over Irrational Rotations

For an irrational rotation of the circle group T=R/Z and apiecewise absolutely continuous function f:TR, the unitary operatorVh(x)=e^2if(x)h(x+) on L²(T) is studied. It is shown that iff has a single discontinuity with non-integer jump then V is-weakly mixing for some with 0<||<1. In particular Vhas continuous singular spectrum. The property of -weak mixing(with possible change of the value of , 0<||<1) holdsfor all irrational rotations and, given , is stable under perturbationsof f by functions with sufficiently small O(1/n)-norm. On theother hand, there exists a piecewise linear function f withtwo non-integer jumps such that the spectrum of V is continuoussingular for one value of and Lebesgue for another.