The spectrum of the Laplace operator in a curved strip of constant width built along an infinite plane curve, subject to three different types of boundary conditions (Dirichlet, Neumann and a combination of these ones, respectively), is investigated. We prove that the essential spectrum as a set is stable under any curvature of the reference curve which vanishes at infinity and find various sufficient conditions which guarantee the existence of geometrically induced discrete spectrum. Furthermore, we derive a lower bound on the distance between the essential spectrum and the spectral threshold for locally curved strips. The paper is also intended as an overview of some new and old results on spectral properties of curved quantum waveguides.
In this paper we study the influence of an electric field on a two dimen-sional waveguide. We show that bound states that occur under a geometrical deformation of the guide turn into resonances when we apply an electric field of small intensity having a nonzero component on the longitudinal direction of the system. MSC-2010 number: 35B34,35P25, 81Q10, 82D77.
We consider the negative Dirichlet Laplacian on an infinite waveguide embedded in $\RR^2$, and finite segments thereof. The waveguide is a perturbation of a periodic strip in terms of a sequence of independent identically distributed random variables which influence the curvature. We derive explicit lower bounds on the first eigenvalue of finite segments of the randomly curved waveguide in the small coupling (i.e. weak disorder) regime. This allows us to estimate the probability of low lying eigenvalues, a tool which is relevant in the context of Anderson localization for random Schrödinger op…
We study the nature of the essential spectrum of the Dirichlet Laplacian in tubes about infinite curves embedded in Euclidean spaces. Under suitable assumptions about the decay of curvatures at infinity, we prove the absence of singular continuous spectrum and state properties of possible embedded eigenvalues. The argument is based on Mourre conjugate operator method developed for acoustic multistratified domains by Benbernou and Dermenjian et al. As a technical preliminary, we carry out a spectral analysis for Schrodinger-type operators in straight Dirichlet tubes. We also apply the result to…
The interplay among the spectrum, geometry and magnetic field in tubular neighbourhoods of curves in Euclidean spaces is investigated in the limit when the cross section shrinks to a point. Proving a norm resolvent convergence, we derive effective, lower-dimensional models which depend on the intensity of the magnetic field and curvatures. The results are used to establish complete asymptotic expansions for eigenvalues. Spectral stability properties based on Hardy-type inequalities induced by magnetic fields are also analysed.
The Dirichlet Laplacian in a curved three-dimensional tube built along a spatial (bounded or unbounded) curve is investigated in the limit when the uniform cross-section of the tube diminishes. Both deformations due to bending and twisting of the tube are considered. We show that the Laplacian converges in a norm-resolvent sense to the well known one-dimensional Schroedinger operator whose potential is expressed in terms of the curvature of the reference curve, the twisting angle and a constant measuring the asymmetry of the cross-section. Contrary to previous results, we allow the reference c…
We consider the Dirichlet Laplacian with uniform magnetic field on a curved strip in two dimensions. We give a sufficient condition ensuring the existence of the discrete spectrum in the strong magnetic field limit.
We investigate the influence of an electric field on trapped modes arising in a two-dimensional curved quantum waveguide ${\bf Ω}$ i.e. bound states of the corresponding Laplace operator $-Δ\_{\bf Ω}$. Here the curvature of the guide is supposed to satisfy some assumptions of analyticity, and decays as $O(|s|^{-\varepsilon}), \varepsilon > 3$ at infinity. We show that under conditions on the electric field $ \bf F$, ${\bf H}(F):= -Δ\_{\bf Ω} + {\bf F}. {\bf x} $ has resonances near the discrete eigenvalues of $-Δ\_{\bf Ω}$.
The spectral problem on a periodic domain with cracks is studied. An asymptotic form of dispersion relations is calculated under assumption that the opening of the cracks is small.
We consider a planar waveguide with combined Dirichlet and Neumann conditions imposed in a "twisted" way. We study the discrete spectrum and describe it dependence on the configuration of the boundary conditions. In particular, we show that in certain cases the model can have discrete eigenvalues emerging from the threshold of the essential spectrum. We give a criterium for their existence and construct them as convergent holomorphic series.
It is proved that small periodic singular perturbation of a cylindrical waveguide surface may open a gap in the continuous spectrum of the Dirichlet problem for the Laplace operator. If the perturbation period is long and the caverns in the cylinder are small, the gap certainly opens.
We investigate properties of a particle confined to a hard-wall spiral-shaped region. As a case study we analyze in detail the Archimedean spiral for which the spectrum above the continuum threshold is absolutely continuous away from the thresholds. The subtle difference between the radial and perpendicular width implies, however, that in contrast to `less curved' waveguides, the discrete spectrum is empty in this case. We also discuss modifications such a multi-arm Archimedean spirals and spiral waveguides with a central cavity; in the latter case bound state already exist if the cavity excee…
We study a Helmholtz-type spectral problem related to the propagation of electromagnetic waves in photonic crystal waveguides. The waveguide is created by introducing a linear defect into a two-dimensional periodic medium. The defect is infinitely extended and aligned with one of the coordinate axes. The perturbation is expected to introduce guided mode spectrum inside the band gaps of the fully periodic, unperturbed spectral problem. In the first part of the paper, we prove that, somewhat unexpectedly, guided mode spectrum can be created by arbitrarily "small" perturbations. Secondly we show …
We consider fundamental issues of the mathematical theory of the wave propagation in waveguides with inclusions. Analysis is performed in terms of a boundary eigenvalue problem for the Maxwell equations which is reduced to an eigenvalue problem for an operator pencil. We formulate the definition of eigenwaves and associated waves using the system of eigenvectors and associated vectors of the pencil and prove that the spectrum of normal waves forms a nonempty set of isolated points localized in a strip with at most finitely many real points.
Quantum waveguide with the shape of planar infinite straight strip and combined Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on the opposite half-lines of the boundary is considered. The absence of the point as well as of the singular continuous spectrum is proved.
We consider the waveguide modelled by a $n$-dimensional infinite tube. The operator we study is the Dirichlet Laplacian perturbed by two distant perturbations. The perturbations are described by arbitrary abstract operators ''localized'' in a certain sense, and the distance between their ''supports'' tends to infinity. We study the asymptotic behaviour of the discrete spectrum of such system. The main results are a convergence theorem and the asymptotics expansions for the eigenvalues. The asymptotic behaviour of the associated eigenfunctions is described as well. We also provide some particul…
We analyze a family of singular Schrödinger operators describing a Neumann waveguide with a periodic array of singular traps of a $δ'$ type. We show that in the limit when perpendicular size of the guide tends to zero and the $δ'$ interactions are appropriately scaled, the first spectral gap is determined exclusively by geometric properties of the traps.
We study the Neumann Laplacian $-Δ^N$ restricted to a periodic waveguide. In this situation its spectrum $σ(-Δ^N)$ presents a band structure. Our goal and strategy is to get spectral information from an analysis of the asymptotic behavior of these bands provided that the waveguide is sufficiently thin.
The spectrum of the Schrödinger operator in a quantum waveguide is known to be unstable in two and three dimensions. Any enlargement of the waveguide produces eigenvalues beneath the continuous spectrum. Also if the waveguide is bent eigenvalues will arise below the continuous spectrum. In this paper a magnetic field is added into the system. The spectrum of the magnetic Schrödinger operator is proved to be stable under small local deformations and also under small bending of the waveguide. The proof includes a magnetic Hardy-type inequality in the waveguide, which is interesting in its own.
Consider the Dirichlet Laplacian operator $-Δ^D$ in a periodic waveguide $Ω$. On the condition that $Ω$ is sufficiently thin, we show that its spectrum $σ(-Δ^D)$ is absolutely continuous (in each finite region). In addition, we ensure the existence of at least one gap in $σ(-Δ^D)$ and locate it.
We study the low-lying spectrum of the Dirichlet Laplace operator on a randomly wiggled strip. More precisely, our results are formulated in terms of the eigenvalues of finite segment approximations of the infinite waveguide. Under appropriate weak-disorder assumptions we obtain deterministic and probabilistic bounds on the position of the lowest eigenvalue. A Combes-Thomas argument allows us to obtain so-called 'initial length scale decay estimates' at they are used in the proof of spectral localization using the multiscale analysis.
The Dirichlet Laplacian in curved tubes of arbitrary cross-section rotating with respect to the Tang frame along infinite curves in Euclidean spaces of arbitrary dimension is investigated. If the reference curve is not straight and its curvatures vanish at infinity, we prove that the essential spectrum as a set coincides with the spectrum of the straight tube of the same cross-section and that the discrete spectrum is not empty.
In this note we investigate spectral properties of a periodic waveguide $Ω^\varepsilon$ ($\varepsilon$ is a small parameter) obtained from a straight strip by attaching an array of $\varepsilon$-periodically distributed identical protuberances having "room-and-passage" geometry. In the current work we consider the operator $\mathcal{A}^\varepsilon=-ρ^\varepsilonΔ_{Ω^\varepsilon}$, where $Δ_{Ω^\varepsilon}$ is the Neumann Laplacian in $Ω^\varepsilon$, the weight $ρ^\varepsilon$ is equal to $1$ everywhere except the union of the "rooms". We will prove that the spectrum of $\mathcal{A}^\varepsilo…
We consider a family $\{Ω^\varepsilon\}_{\varepsilon>0}$ of periodic domains in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with waveguide geometry and analyse spectral properties of the Neumann Laplacian $-Δ_{Ω^\varepsilon}$ on $Ω^\varepsilon$. The waveguide $Ω^\varepsilon$ is a union of a thin straight strip of the width $\varepsilon$ and a family of small protuberances with the so-called "room-and-passage" geometry. The protuberances are attached periodically, with a period $\varepsilon$, along the strip upper boundary. For $\varepsilon\to 0$ we prove a (kind of) resolvent convergence of $-Δ_{Ω^\varepsilon}$ to a certa…
We consider the Laplacian in a curved two-dimensional strip of constant width squeezed between two curves, subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions on one of the curves and variable Robin boundary conditions on the other. We prove that, for certain types of Robin boundary conditions, the spectral threshold of the Laplacian is estimated from below by the lowest eigenvalue of the Laplacian in a Dirichlet-Robin annulus determined by the geometry of the strip. Moreover, we show that an appropriate combination of the geometric setting and boundary conditions leads to a Hardy-type inequality in infi…
We develop an abstract method to identify spectral points of definite type in the spectrum of the operator $T_1\otimes I_2 + I_1\otimes T_2$. The method is applicable in particular for non-self-adjoint waveguide type operators with symmetries. Using the remarkable properties of the spectral points of definite type, we obtain new results on realness of weakly coupled bound states and of low lying essential spectrum in the $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetric waveguide. Moreover, we show that the pseudospectrum has a normal tame behavior near the low lying essential spectrum and exclude the accumu…
We consider the Dirichlet Laplacian in tubular neighbourhoods of complete non-compact Riemannian manifolds immersed in the Euclidean space. We show that the essential spectrum coincides with the spectrum of a planar tube provided that the second fundamental form of the manifold vanishes at infinity and the transport of the cross-section along the manifold is asymptotically parallel. For low dimensions and codimensions, the result applies to the location of propagating states in nanostructures under physically natural conditions.
In a thin multidimensional layer we consider a second order differential PT-symmetric operator. The operator is of rather general form and its coefficients are arbitrary functions depending both on slow and fast variables. The PT-symmetry of the operator is ensured by the boundary conditions of Robin type with pure imaginary coefficient. In the work we determine the limiting operator, prove the uniform resolvent convergence of the perturbed operator to the limiting one, and derive the estimates for the rates of convergence. We establish the convergence of the spectrum of perturbed operator to …
We introduce a planar waveguide of constant width with non-Hermitian PT-symmetric Robin boundary conditions. We study the spectrum of this system in the regime when the boundary coupling function is a compactly supported perturbation of a homogeneous coupling. We prove that the essential spectrum is positive and independent of such perturbation, and that the residual spectrum is empty. Assuming that the perturbation is small in the supremum norm, we show that it gives rise to real weakly-coupled eigenvalues converging to the threshold of the essential spectrum. We derive sufficient conditions …
We consider the spectrum of a Schroedinger operator in a multi-dimensional cylinder perturbed by a shrinking potential. We study the phenomenon of a new eigenvalue emerging from the threshold of the essential spectrum and give the sufficient conditions for such eigenvalues to emerge. If such eigenvalues exist, we construct their asymptotic expansions.
We study the essential spectra of formally self-adjoint elliptic systems on doubly periodic planar domains perturbed by a semi-infinite periodic row of foreign inclusions. We show that the essential spectrum of the problem consists of the essential spectrum of the purely periodic problem and another component, which is the union of the discrete spectra of model problems in the infinite perturbation strip; these model problems arise by an application of the partial Floquet-Bloch-Gelfand transform.
We show that twisting of an infinite straight three-dimensional tube with non-circular cross-section gives rise to a Hardy-type inequality for the associated Dirichlet Laplacian. As an application we prove certain stability of the spectrum of the Dirichlet Laplacian in locally and mildly bent tubes. Namely, it is known that any local bending, no matter how small, generates eigenvalues below the essential spectrum of the Laplacian in the tubes with arbitrary cross-sections rotated along a reference curve in an appropriate way. In the present paper we show that for any other rotation some critic…
States of a generic quantum field theory on a curved spacetime are considered which satisfy the KMS condition with respect to an evolution associated with a complete (Killing) vector field. It is shown that at any point where the vector field is spacelike, such states cannot satisfy a certain microlocal condition which is weaker than the microlocal spectrum condition in the case of asymptotically free fields.
Spatial cruciform quantum waveguides (the Dirichlet problem for Laplace operator) are constructed such that the total multiplicity of the discrete spectrum exceeds any preassigned number.
We consider the Dirichlet Laplacian in a straight three dimensional waveguide with non-rotationally invariant cross section, perturbed by a twisting of small amplitude. It is well known that such a perturbation does not create eigenvalues below the essential spectrum. However, around the bottom of the spectrum, we provide a meromorphic extension of the weighted resolvent of the perturbed operator, and show the existence of exactly one resonance near this point. Moreover, we obtain the asymptotic behavior of this resonance as the size of the twisting goes to 0. We also extend the analysis to th…
We consider the magnetic Schrodinger operator in a two-dimensional strip. On the boundary of the strip the Dirichlet boundary condition is imposed except for a fixed segment (window), where it switches to magnetic Neumann boundary condition (see Section 2, Eq. (2.2) for the definition of this boundary condition}. We deal with a smooth compactly supported field as well as with the Aharonov-Bohm field. We give an estimate on the maximal length of the window, for which the discrete spectrum of the considered operator will be empty. In the case of a compactly supported field we also give a suffici…
In the paper we study the discrete spectrum of a pair of quantum two-dimensional waveguides having common boundary in which a window of finite length is cut out. We study the phenomenon of new eigenvalues emerging from the threshold of the essential spectrum when the length of window passes through critical values. We construct the asymptotics expansions for the emerging eigenvalues with respect to small parameter which is the difference between current length of the window and the nearest critical value. We also study the behaviour of the spectrum when the length of the window increases unbou…
We discuss a three-dimensional soft quantum waveguide, in other words, Schrödinger operator in $\R^3$ with an attractive potential supported by an infinite tube and keeping its transverse profile fixed. We show that if the tube is asymptotically straight, the distance between its ends is unbounded, and its twist satisfies the so-called Tang condition, the esential spectrum is not affected by smooth bends. Furthermore, we derive a sufficient condition, expressed in terms of the tube geometry, for the discrete spectrum of such an operator to be nonempty.
We study measure perturbations of the Laplacian in $L^2(\R^2)$ supported by an infinite curve $Γ$ in the plane which is asymptotically straight in a suitable sense. We show that if $Γ$ is not a straight line, such a ``leaky quantum wire'' has at least one bound state below the threshold of the essential spectrum.
We consider the Laplacian in a tubular neighbourhood of a hyperplane subjected to non-self-adjoint $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric Robin boundary conditions. Its spectrum is found to be purely essential and real for constant boundary conditions. The influence of the perturbation in the boundary conditions on the threshold of the essential spectrum is studied using the Birman-Schwinger principle. Our aim is to derive a sufficient condition for existence, uniqueness and reality of discrete eigenvalues. We show that discrete spectrum exists when the perturbation acts in the mean against the unperturbed …
We investigate the discrete spectrum of the Hamiltonian describing a quantum particle living in the two-dimensional curved strip. We impose the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on opposite sides of the strip. The existence of the discrete eigenvalue below the essential spectrum threshold depends on the sign of the total bending angle for the asymptotically straight strips.
We study the spectrum of the Helmholtz equation in a two-dimensional infinite waveguide, containing a weak heterogeneity localized at an internal point, and obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions at its border. We prove that, when the heterogeneity corresponds to a locally denser material, the lowest eigenvalue of the spectrum falls below the continuum threshold and a bound state appears, localized at the heterogeneity. We devise a rigorous perturbation scheme and derive the exact expression for the energy to third order in the heterogeneity.
We investigate the discrete spectrum of the Hamiltonian describing a quantum particle living in the two-dimensional straight strip. We impose the combined Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on different parts of the boundary. Several statements on the existence or the absence of the discrete spectrum are proven for two models with combined boundary conditions. Examples of eigenfunctions and eigenvalues are computed numerically.
We consider small perturbations of the Laplace operator in a multi-dimensional cylindrical domain by second order differential operators with periodic coefficients. We show that under certain non-degeneracy conditions such perturbations can open a gap in the continuous spectrum and give the leading asymptotic terms for the gap edges. We also estimate the values of quasi-momentum at which the spectrum edges are attained. The general machinery is illustrated by several new examples in two- and three-dimensional structures.
Motivated by the theory of quantum waveguides, we investigate the spectrum of the Laplacian, subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions, in a curved strip of constant width that is defined as a tubular neighbourhood of an infinite curve in a two-dimensional Riemannian manifold. Under the assumption that the strip is asymptotically straight in a suitable sense, we localise the essential spectrum and find sufficient conditions which guarantee the existence of geometrically induced bound states. In particular, the discrete spectrum exists for non-negatively curved strips which are studied in detail…
We present a numerical study of the spectrum of the Laplacian in an unbounded strip with PT-symmetric boundary conditions. We focus on non-Hermitian features of the model reflected in an unusual dependence of the eigenvalues below the continuous spectrum on various boundary-coupling parameters.
We show that the analogue of the geometric phase for non-Hermitian coupled waveguides with PT-symmetry and at least one periodically varying parameter can be purely imaginary, and will consequently result in the manifestation of an instability in the system. The instability peaks seen in the spectrum of the system's eigenstates after evolution along the waveguides can be directly mapped to the spectrum of the derivative of the geometric function. The instabilities are magnified as the exceptional point of the system is approached, and non-adiabatic effects begin to appear. As the system cannot…
The space-charge distribution of the electromagnetic field excited by point charge moving with a constant velocity on the axis of the circular disc-loaded waveguide was analyzed. The energy losses per structure period numerically were calculated. With increasing charge energy main features of the waveguide modes reach some finite values and, so way, define the limit radiation spectrum. The saturation of the amplitudes of modes (which belongs to the lower part of the limit spectrum) was observed. The analytical techniques and results of calculations were discussed with the use of translation sy…
The Laplace operator in infinite quantum waveguides (e.g., a bent strip or a twisted tube) often has a point-like eigenvalue below the essential spectrum that corresponds to a trapped eigenmode of finite L2 norm. We revisit this statement for resonators with long but finite branches that we call "finite waveguides". Although now there is no essential spectrum and all eigenfunctions have finite L2 norm, the trapping can be understood as an exponential decay of the eigenfunction inside the branches. We describe a general variational formalism for detecting trapped modes in such resonators. For f…
We analyze the spectrum of the "local" Iwatsuka model, i.e. a two-dimensional charged particle interacting with a magnetic field which is homogeneous outside a finite strip and translationally invariant along it. We derive two new sufficient conditions for absolute continuity of the spectrum. We also show that in most cases the number of open spectral gaps of the model is finite. To illustrate these results we investigate numerically the situation when the field is zero in the strip being screened, e.g. by a superconducting mask.
Some years ago, Radzikowski has found a characterization of Hadamard states for scalar quantum fields on a four-dimensional globally hyperbolic spacetime in terms of a specific form of the wavefront set of their two-point functions (termed `wavefront set spectrum condition'), thereby initiating a major progress in the understanding of Hadamard states and the further development of quantum field theory in curved spacetime. In the present work, we extend this important result on the equivalence of the wavefront set spectrum condition with the Hadamard condition from scalar fields to vector field…
