Homogenized description of defect modes in periodic structures with localized defects

Abstract

A spatially localized initial condition for an energy-conserving wave equation with periodic coefficients disperses (spatially spreads) and decays in amplitude as time advances. This dispersion is associated with the continuous spectrum of the underlying differential operator and the absence of discrete eigenvalues. The introduction of spatially localized perturbations in a periodic medium leads to defect modes, states in which energy remains trapped and spatially localized. In this paper we study weak, O(λ), 0 1/2 =λ -1 ≫1). Bound states therefore have a multi-scale structure: a "carrier Bloch wave" × a "wave envelope", which is governed by a homogenized Schrödinger operator with associated effective mass, depending on the spectral band edge which is the site of the bifurcation. Our analysis is based on a reformulation of the eigenvalue problem in Bloch quasi-momentum space, using the Gelfand-Bloch transform and a Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction to a closed equation for the near-band-edge frequency components of the bound state. A rescaling of the latter equation yields the homogenized effective equation for the wave envelope, and approximations to bifurcating eigenvalues and eigenfunctions.