On linear stability of crystals in the Schroedinger-Poisson model

TL;DR

This paper proves the first linear stability results for crystals in the Schrödinger-Poisson model by establishing energy positivity of Bloch generators under specific conditions, advancing understanding of crystal stability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel class of ion charge densities ensuring linear stability and develops a spectral resolution theory for nonselfadjoint Hamilton operators in this context.

Findings

Energy positivity holds under Wiener-type and additional conditions.

Diagonalization of nonselfadjoint Bloch generators is achieved.

Linear stability of crystal dynamics is established.

Abstract

We consider the Schr\"odinger--Poisson--Newton equations for crystals with a cubic lattice and one ion per cell. We linearize this dynamics at the ground state and introduce a novel class of the ion charge densities which provide the stability of the linearized dynamics. This is the first result on linear stability for crystals. Our key result is the {\it energy positivity} for the Bloch generators of the linearized dynamics under a Wiener-type condition on the ion charge density. We also assume an additional condition which cancels the negative contribution caused by electrostatic instability. The proof of the energy positivity relies on a special factorization of the corresponding Hamilton functional. We show that the energy positivity can fail if the additional condition breaks down while the Wiener condition holds. The Bloch generators are nonselfadjoint (and even nonsymmetric) Hamilton operators. We diagonalize these generators using our theory of spectral resolution of the Hamilton ope\-rators {\it with positive definite energy} \ci{KK2014a,KK2014b}. Using this spectral resolution, we establish the stability of the linearized crystal dynamics.