The atomistic to continuum interface for quasicontinuum energies
exhibits nonzero forces under uniform strain that have been
called ghost forces.
In this paper,
we prove for a linearization of a one-dimensional quasicontinuum energy
around a uniform strain
that the effect of the ghost forces on the displacement
nearly cancels and has a small effect on the error away from the interface.
We give optimal order error estimates
that show that the quasicontinuum displacement
converges to the atomistic displacement at the rate O(h)
in the discrete $\ell^\infty$ and
w1,1 norms where h is the interatomic spacing.
We also give a proof that the error in the displacement gradient
decays away from the interface to O(h) at distance O(h|logh|)
in the atomistic region and distance O(h) in the continuum region.
Our work gives an explicit and simplified form for the decay of the effect of the
atomistic to continuum coupling error in terms of a general underlying interatomic potential and gives
the estimates described above in the discrete $\ell^\infty$ and w1,p norms.