The homogenisation of Maxwell's equations with applications to photonic crystals and localised waveforms on metafilms

An asymptotic theory is developed to generate equations that model the global behaviour of electromagnetic waves in periodic photonic structures when the wavelength is not necessarily long relative to the periodic cell dimensions; potentially highly-oscillatory short-scale detail is encapsulated through integrated quantities. The theory we develop is then applied to two topical examples, the first being the case of aligned dielectric cylinders, which has great importance in the modelling of photonic crystal fibres. We then consider the propagation of waves in a structured metafilm, here chosen to be a planar array of dielectric spheres. At certain frequencies strongly directional dynamic anisotropy is observed, and the asymptotic theory is shown to capture the effect, giving highly accurate qualitative and quantitative results as well as providing interpretation for the underlying change from elliptic to hyperbolic behaviour

High frequency homogenisation for elastic lattices

A complete methodology, based on a two-scale asymptotic approach, that enables the homogenisation of elastic lattices at non-zero frequencies is developed. Elastic lattices are distinguished from scalar lattices in that two or more types of coupled waves exist, even at low frequencies. Such a theory enables the determination of effective material properties at both low and high frequencies. The theoretical framework is developed for the propagation of waves through lattices of arbitrary geometry and dimension. The asymptotic approach provides a method through which the dispersive properties of lattices at frequencies near standing waves can be described; the theory accurately describes both the dispersion curves and the response of the lattice near the edges of the Brillouin zone. The leading order solution is expressed as a product between the standing wave solution and long-scale envelope functions that are eigensolutions of the homogenised partial differential equation. The general theory is supplemented by a pair of illustrative examples for two archetypal classes of two-dimensional elastic lattices. The efficiency of the asymptotic approach in accurately describing several interesting phenomena is demonstrated, including dynamic anisotropy and Dirac cones.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Long- and short-time asymptotics of the first-passage time of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck and other mean-reverting processes

The first-passage problem of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process to a boundary is a long-standing problem with no known closed-form solution except in specific cases. Taking this as a starting-point, and extending to a general mean-reverting process, we investigate the long- and short-time asymptotics using a combination of Hopf-Cole and Laplace transform techniques. As a result we are able to give a single formula that is correct in both limits, as well as being exact in certain special cases. We demonstrate the results using a variety of other models

Analytical approximation to the multidimensional Fokker--Planck equation with steady state

The Fokker--Planck equation is a key ingredient of many models in physics, and related subjects, and arises in a diverse array of settings. Analytical solutions are limited to special cases, and resorting to numerical simulation is often the only route available; in high dimensions, or for parametric studies, this can become unwieldy. Using asymptotic techniques, that draw upon the known Ornstein--Uhlenbeck (OU) case, we consider a mean-reverting system and obtain its representation as a product of terms, representing short-term, long-term, and medium-term behaviour. A further reduction yields a simple explicit formula, both intuitive in terms of its physical origin and fast to evaluate. We illustrate a breadth of cases, some of which are `far' from the OU model, such as double-well potentials, and even then, perhaps surprisingly, the approximation still gives very good results when compared with numerical simulations. Both one- and two-dimensional examples are considered.Comment: Updated version as publishe

Fluid-loaded metasurfaces

We consider wave propagation along fluid-loaded structures which take the form of an elastic plate augmented by an array of resonators forming a metasurface, that is, a surface structured with sub-wavelength resonators. Such surfaces have had considerable recent success for the control of wave propagation in electromagnetism and acoustics, by combining the vision of sub-wavelength wave manipulation, with the design, fabrication and size advantages associated with surface excitation. We explore one aspect of recent interest in this field: graded metasurfaces, but within the context of fluid-loaded structures. Graded metasurfaces allow for selective spatial frequency separation and are often referred to as exhibiting rainbow trapping. Experiments, and theory, have been developed for acoustic, electromagnetic, and even elastic, rainbow devices but this has not been approached for fluid-loaded structures that support surface waves coupled with the acoustic field in a bulk fluid. This surface wave, coupled with the fluid, can be used to create an additional effect by designing a metasurface to mode convert from surface to bulk waves. We demonstrate that sub-wavelength control is possible and that one can create both rainbow trapping and mode conversion phenomena for a fluid-loaded elastic plate model.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

On a class of three-phase checkerboards with unusual effective properties

We examine the band spectrum, and associated Floquet-Bloch eigensolutions, arising in a class of three-phase periodic checkerboards. On a periodic cell $[-1,1[^2$, the refractive index is defined by $n^2= 1+ g_1(x_1)+g_2(x_2)$ with $g_i(x_i)= r^2\quad {\rm for} \quad 0\leq x_i-1$ the lowest frequency branch goes through origin with linear behaviour, which leads to effective properties encountered in most periodic structures. However, the case whereby $r^2=-1$ is very unusual, as the frequency $\lambda$ behaves like $\sqrt{k}$ near the origin, where $k$ is the wavenumber. Finally, when $r^2<-1$, the lowest branch does not pass through the origin and a zero-frequency band gap opens up. In the last two cases, effective medium theory breaks down even in the quasi-static limit, while the high-frequency homogenization [Craster et al., Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 466, 2341-2362, 2010] neatly captures the detailed features of band diagrams

Solution to Reconstruct the Height Correlation Function of a Randomly Rough Surface Using the Diffuse Scattered Elastic Waves

The scattering of elastic waves provides a way for subsurface sensing of surface conditions, which may be applied in NDE to characterize crack-like defects within a component or corrosion surfaces on a remote surface such as the inside of a pipe. In [1], a methodology has previously been suggested to estimate the surface RMS value using a single transducer performing the pulse echo inspection. The conventional formulae representing the exponential decay of the expected coherent intensity in the specular direction as a function of the RMS value was applied in that work. Apart from the RMS roughness, the surface correlation function is also very important as it describes the lateral variation of surface height. However, so far there has been no solution found to reconstruct the height correlation function, since it is strongly related with the diffuse field whose analytical form was not accessible until recently. In [2] we have developed an analytical expression to represent the elastic wave diffuse field, on the basis of which we proceed in this study to develop a solution to reconstruct the complete correlation function from the diffuse field. The methodology relies on the angular measurement of the expected diffuse intensity within a narrow frequency band using a phased array. In practice, multiple scans of different parts of the surface need to be performed using a phased array, so that the expected intensity at different angles can be obtained by averaging the intensities from all scans. The diffuse intensity is then extracted by subtracting the coherent intensity from the mean total intensity. By applying the developed inverse algorithm, the correlation function can be recovered from the diffuse intensity. In this study, numerical simulations via the Monte Carlo approach using multiple surface realizations are run to obtain the expected angular distribution of the diffuse intensity, which is then used in the inverse algorithm to reconstruct the correlation function. Results show that the developed method successfully reconstructs the height correlation function for a range of RMS values from low to high roughness