Asymptotics of the principal eigenvalue of the Laplacian in 2D periodic domains with small traps
Frédéric Paquin-Lefebvre, Sarafa Adewale Iyaniwura, Michael J. Ward · European Journal of Applied Mathematics · 2021
We derive and numerically implement various asymptotic approximations for the lowest or principal eigenvalue of the Laplacian with a periodic arrangement of localised traps of small \[\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon )\] spatial extent that are centred at the lattice points of an arbitrary Bravais lattice in \[{\mathbb{R}^2}\] . The expansion of this principal eigenvalue proceeds in powers of \[ u \equiv - 1/\log (\varepsilon {d_c})\] , where d c is the logarithmic capacitance of the trap set. An explicit three-term approximation for this principal eigenvalue is derived using strong localised perturbation theory, with the coefficients in this series evaluated numerically by using an explicit formula for the source-neutral periodic Green’s function and its regular part. Moreover, a transcendental equation for an improved approximation to the principal eigenvalue, which effectively sums all the logarithmic terms in powers of v , is derived in terms of the regular part of the periodic Helmholtz Green’s function. By using an Ewald summation technique to first obtain a rapidly converging infinite series representation for this regular part, a simple Newton iteration scheme on the transcendental equation is implemented to numerically evaluate the improved ‘log-summed’ approximation to the principal eigenvalue. From a numerical computation of the PDE eigenvalue problem defined on the fundamental Wigner–Seitz (WS) cell for the lattice, it is shown that the three-term asymptotic approximation for the principal eigenvalue agrees well with the numerical result only for a rather small trap radius. In contrast, the log-summed asymptotic result provides a very close approximation to the principal eigenvalue even when the trap radius is only moderately small. For a circular trap, the first few transcendental correction terms that further improves the log-summed approximation for the principal eigenvalue are derived. Finally, it is shown numerically that, amongst all Bravais lattices with a fixed area of the primitive cell, the principal eigenvalue is maximised for a regular hexagonal arrangement of traps.