Continuum honeycomb Schr\"odinger operators with incommensurate line defects

TL;DR

This paper investigates wave propagation and edge states in 2D honeycomb structures with irrational line defects, using multiscale analysis and a 3D Hamiltonian framework to handle quasiperiodicity and non-commensurate geometries.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multiscale approach to construct and analyze edge states in non-commensurate honeycomb structures, extending previous work to irrational edges.

Findings

Infinite edge state eigenpairs with dense energies in the spectral gap

Development of a resolvent expansion for the 3D Hamiltonian

Identification of a non-resonance condition valid in the strong binding regime

Abstract

We study wave propagation in 2D honeycomb structures with a non-commensurate or ``irrational'' line defect or edge. Our model is a Schr\"odinger operator which interpolates, across the edge, between two distinct bulk (asymptotic) Hamiltonians with a common spectral gap about the ``Dirac point'' of an unperturbed honeycomb operator. We seek edge states, eigenstates that are bounded and oscillatory parallel to the edge, and decaying in the transverse direction. For non-commensurate edges, the rigorous definition of these states is nontrivial due to the lack of translation invariance along the edge. To address this, we exploit quasiperiodicity along the edge by expressing the Hamiltonian as the restriction of a 3D (degenerate elliptic) Hamiltonian describing a 3D medium with a 2D interface within which there is periodicity. Via multiscale analysis, we construct approximate edge states in this 3D setting and obtain by restriction 2D edge states which are quasiperiodic along the irrational edge. These edge states are seeded by eigenfunctions of an effective Dirac operator, which has an infinite block-diagonal structure due to the non-commensurate geometry. A consequence is that infinitely many edge state eigenpairs arise, whose energies are dense in the perturbed bulk spectral gap. In a forthcoming paper, we rigorously construct these gap-filling edge states under a Diophantine condition. The main result here is a key tool in this construction: a resolvent expansion for the 3D Hamiltonian, whose leading term is the resolvent of the block-diagonal Dirac operator. The validity of this expansion requires an omnidirectional non-resonance (no-fold) condition on the dispersion functions of the unperturbed honeycomb Hamiltonian. This condition is satisfied in the strong binding regime. In contrast with earlier works on commensurate edges, the omnidirectional condition is independent of the edge.