Slowing down and reflection of waves in truncated periodic media (Q2368776)

The authors study 1D Schrödinger operators with truncated periodic potential. The main results are formulated for an operator \(H_{N}\) of the form \[ H_{N} \psi = -\frac{d^{2}\psi}{d x^{2}} + q_{N} (x) \psi, \] where the potential \(q_{N}\) coincides with a periodic real-valued potential \(q\) on \([0,N L],\) and \(q_{N} = 0\) outside the interval \([0,N L].\) It is assumed that \(L\) is a period of \(q.\) The limiting case, \(N = \infty,\) \[ H_{\infty}\psi = -\frac{d^{2}\psi}{d x^{2}} + q_{\infty} (x) \psi, \;q_{\infty}(x) = q (x) I_{[0,\infty]}, \] is also studied. The operators \(H_{N}\) and \(H_{\infty}\) are considered on the space \(L_{2} (\mathbb{R}).\) \(A\) function \(\psi\) is called the solution of the scattering problem for the operator \(H_{N}\) if \(H_{N} \psi = \omega^{2} \psi\) and \(\psi (x) = e^{i \omega x} + r_{N} (\omega) e^{-i \omega x}\) for \(x < 0,\) and \(\psi (x) = t_{N} (\omega) e^{i \omega x}\) for \(x > N L.\) The numbers \(r_{N} (\omega)\) and \(t_{N}(\omega)\) are called the reflection and transmission coefficients, respectively. The authors give the explicit formulas for the Prüfer transfer matrix \(T_{\omega} (0,L N),\) and also for the coefficients \(r_{N}(\omega)\) and \(t_{N}(\omega),\) as well. Next, it is shown that the transmission coefficient \(t_{N}(\omega)\) vanishes at infinity (\(N = \infty\)). Namely, \(\mid t_{N} (\omega) \mid = O (e^{-\sigma N})\) as \(N \longrightarrow \infty\) for some \(\sigma > \infty\) in case that \(\omega\) belongs to a spectral gap of the periodic 1D Schrödinger operator \(H = -\frac{d^{2}}{d x^{2}} + q.\) If \(\omega_{0}\) is a nondegenerate band edge (i.e., it does not belong to the boundary of two different bands of the spectrum), then \(\mid t_{N}(\omega) \mid = O (\frac{1}{N})\) as \(N \longrightarrow \infty\) for all \(\omega\) close to \(\omega_{0}\) like \(\mid \omega - \omega_{0} \mid = O (\frac{1}{N}).\) For the reflection coefficient \(r_{N}\), it is shown that \(r_{N} (\omega_{0}) = 0\) at any degenerate band edge \(\omega_{0}.\) The paper contains results concerning concrete classes of potentials, too.