Section: Research Program

Spectral theory and modal approaches

The study of waveguides is a longstanding and major topic of the team. Concerning the selfadjoint spectral theory for open waveguides, we turned recently to the very important case of periodic media. One objective is to design periodic structures with localized perturbations to create gaps in the spectrum, containing isolating eigenvalues.

Then, we would like to go further in proving the absence of localized modes in non uniform open waveguides. An original approach has been successfully applied to the scalar problem of a waveguides junctions or bent waveguides. The challenge now is to extend these ideas to vectorial problems (for applications to electromagnetism or elastodynamics) and to junctions of periodic waveguides.

Besides, we will continue our activity on modal methods for closed waveguides. In particular, we aim at extending the enriched modal method to take into account curvature and rough boundaries.

Finally, we are developing asymptotic models for networks of thin waveguides which arise in several applications (electric networks, simulation of lung, nanophotonics...).