  The Harper equation describes an electron on a 2D lattice in magnetic field
and a particle on a 1D lattice in a periodic potential, in general,
incommensurate with the lattice potential. We find the distribution of the
roots of Bethe ansatz equations associated with the Harper equation in the
limit as alpha=1/Q tends to 0, where alpha is the commensurability parameter (Q
is integer). Using the knowledge of this distribution we calculate the higher
and lower boundaries of the spectrum of the Harper equation for small alpha.
The result is in agreement with the semiclassical argument, which can be used
for small alpha.
