Spectrum of a singularly perturbed periodic thin waveguide

Abstract

We consider a family $\{\Omega^\varepsilon\}_{\varepsilon>0}$ of periodic domains in $\mathbb{R}^2$ with waveguide geometry and analyse spectral properties of the Neumann Laplacian $-\Delta_{\Omega^\varepsilon}$ on $\Omega^\varepsilon$. The waveguide $\Omega^\varepsilon$ 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 $-\Delta_{\Omega^\varepsilon}$ to a certain ordinary differential operator. Also we demonstrate Hausdorff convergence of the spectrum. In particular, we conclude that if the sizes of "passages" are appropriately scaled the first spectral gap of $-\Delta_{\Omega^\varepsilon}$ is determined exclusively by geometric properties of the protuberances. The proofs are carried out using methods of homogenization theory.