Straight quantum waveguide with Robin boundary conditions (Q2473514)

The paper deals with spectral properties of a quantum particle confined to an infinite straight planar strip by imposing Robin boundary conditions with variable coupling. The quantum Hamiltonian is identified with the operator \[ H_{\alpha} : = - \Delta, \] in the Hilbert space \(L^{2} (\Omega),\) where \(\Omega : =\mathbb R\times (0, d),\) defined on the domain \(D (H_{\alpha})\) consisting of all functions \(\psi\) from the Sobolev space \(W^{2,2} (\Omega)\) such that \[ - \partial_{y} \psi (x,0) + \alpha (x) \psi (x,0) = 0, \] \[ \partial_{y} \psi (x,d) + \alpha (x) \psi (x,d) = 0 \] for all \(x \in \mathbb R.\) It is assumed that \(\alpha (x)\) is positive for all \(x \in \mathbb R\), and \(\alpha \in W^{1,\infty} (\mathbb R).\) The author proves that \(H_{\alpha}\) is a selfadjoint operator in \(L^{2} (\Omega),\) and assuming that the coupling function \(\alpha (x)\) tends to a constant \(\alpha_{0}\) at infinity, obtains results on the localization of the essential spectrum of \(H_{\alpha}\). Also, there are derived conditions guaranteeing the existence of the discrete spectrum. The results are illustrated by a numerical example.