Christ, M., Kiselev, A., Remling, C. The absolutely continuous spectrum of one-dimensional Schr\"odinger operators with decaying potentials. (14K, LATeX) ABSTRACT. This is an announcement of the proof of some optimal results on the presevation of the absolutely continuous spectrum under perturbations by decaying potentials. We show that if |V(x)| \leq C(1+x)^{-\alpha} with \alpha > 1/2, the whole positive semi-axis is an essential support of the absolutely continuous spectrum. This result is optimal on the power scale. We also derive a new general criterion for the stability of the a.c. spectrum. Another result is that if limsup_{x \goto \infty}x|V(x)| < C, the spectrum is purely a.c. on ((2C/\pi)^{2},\infty). This is also optimal.