Differential operators on graphs and photonic crystals (Q5961045)

The study of classical wave propagation in periodic high contrast photonic and acoustic media leads to the spectral problem \(-\Delta u=\lambda\varepsilon u\), where \(\varepsilon(x)\) is a periodic function that assumes a large value \(\varepsilon\) near a periodic graph \(\Sigma\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) and is equal to \(\Lambda\) otherwise. High contrast regimes lead to appearence of pseudo-differential operators of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann type on graphs. This paper concerns a technique of approximating these pseudo-differential spectral problems by much simpler differential ones.