Team organization may help swarms of flies to become invisible in closed waveguides

We are interested in a time harmonic acoustic problem in a waveguide containing flies. The flies are modelled by small sound soft obstacles. We explain how they should arrange to become invisible to an observer sending waves from $-\infty$ and measuring the resulting scattered field at the same position. We assume that the flies can control their position and/or their size. Both monomodal and multimodal regimes are considered. On the other hand, we show that any sound soft obstacle (non necessarily small) embedded in the waveguide always produces some non exponentially decaying scattered field at $+\infty$ for wavenumbers smaller than a constant that we explicit. As a consequence, for such wavenumbers, the flies cannot be made completely invisible to an observer equipped with a measurement device located at $+\infty$

Oscillating behaviour of the spectrum for a plasmonic problem in a domain with a rounded corner

We investigate the eigenvalue problem $-\text{div}(\sigma \nabla u) = \lambda u\ (\mathscr{P})$ in a 2D domain $\Omega$ divided into two regions $\Omega_{\pm}$. We are interested in situations where $\sigma$ takes positive values on $\Omega_{+}$ and negative ones on $\Omega_{-}$. Such problems appear in time harmonic electromagnetics in the modeling of plasmonic technologies. In a recent work [15], we highlighted an unusual instability phenomenon for the source term problem associated with $(\mathscr{P})$: for certain configurations, when the interface between the subdomains $\Omega_{\pm}$ presents a rounded corner, the solution may depend critically on the value of the rounding parameter. In the present article, we explain this property studying the eigenvalue problem $(\mathscr{P})$. We provide an asymptotic expansion of the eigenvalues and prove error estimates. We establish an oscillatory behaviour of the eigenvalues as the rounding parameter of the corner tends to zero. We end the paper illustrating this phenomenon with numerical experiments.Comment: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis (ESAIM: M2AN), 09/12/2016. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1304.478

Generalized impedance boundary conditions with vanishing or sign-changing impedance

We consider a Laplace type problem with a generalized impedance boundary condition of the form $\partial_\nu u=-\partial_x(g\partial_xu)$ on a flat part $\Gamma$ of the boundary. Here $\nu$ is the outward unit normal vector to $\partial\Omega$, $g$ is the impedance parameter and $x$ is the coordinate along $\Gamma$. Such problems appear for example in the modelling of small perturbations of the boundary. In the literature, the cases $g=1$ or $g=-1$ have been investigated. In this work, we address situations where $\Gamma$ contains the origin and $g(x)=\mathbb{1}_{x>0}(x)x^\alpha$ or g(x)=-\mbox{sign}(x)|x|^\alpha with $\alpha\ge0$. In other words, we study cases where $g$ vanishes at the origin and changes its sign. The main message is that the well-posedness in the Fredholm sense of the corresponding problems depends on the value of $\alpha$. For $\alpha\in[0,1)$, we show that the associated operators are Fredholm of index zero while it is not the case when $\alpha=1$. The proof of the first results is based on the reformulation as 1D problems combined with the derivation of compact embedding results for the functional spaces involved in the analysis. The proof of the second results relies on the computation of singularities and the construction of Weyl's sequences. We also discuss the equivalence between the strong and weak formulations, which is not straightforward. Finally, we provide simple numerical experiments which seem to corroborate the theorems

Non-scattering wavenumbers and far field invisibility for a finite set of incident/scattering directions

We investigate a time harmonic acoustic scattering problem by a penetrable inclusion with compact support embedded in the free space. We consider cases where an observer can produce incident plane waves and measure the far field pattern of the resulting scattered field only in a finite set of directions. In this context, we say that a wavenumber is a non-scattering wavenumber if the associated relative scattering matrix has a non trivial kernel. Under certain assumptions on the physical coefficients of the inclusion, we show that the non-scattering wavenumbers form a (possibly empty) discrete set. Then, in a second step, for a given real wavenumber and a given domain D, we present a constructive technique to prove that there exist inclusions supported in D for which the corresponding relative scattering matrix is null. These inclusions have the important property to be impossible to detect from far field measurements. The approach leads to a numerical algorithm which is described at the end of the paper and which allows to provide examples of (approximated) invisible inclusions.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

A curious instability phenomenon for a rounded corner in presence of a negative material

We study a 2D scalar harmonic wave transmission problem between a classical dielectric and a medium with a real-valued negative permittivity/permeability which models a metal at optical frequency or an ideal negative metamaterial. We highlight an unusual instability phenomenon for this problem when the interface between the two media presents a rounded corner. To establish this result, we provide an asymptotic expansion of the solution, when it is well-defined, in the geometry with a rounded corner. Then, we prove error estimates. Finally, a careful study of the asymptotic expansion allows us to conclude that the solution, when it is well-defined, depends critically on the value of the rounding parameter. We end the paper with a numerical illustration of this instability phenomenon

Spectrum of the Laplacian with mixed boundary conditions in a chamfered quarter of layer

We investigate the spectrum of a Laplace operator with mixed boundary conditions in an unbounded chamfered quarter of layer. The geometry depends on two parameters gathered in some vector $\kappa=(\kappa_1,\kappa_2)$ which characterizes the domain at the edges. We identify the essential spectrum and establish different results concerning the discrete spectrum with respect to $\kappa$. In particular, we show that for a given $\kappa_1>0$, there is some $h(\kappa_1)>0$ such that discrete spectrum exists for $\kappa_2\in(-\kappa_1,0)\cup(h(\kappa_1),\kappa_1)$ whereas it is empty for $\kappa_2\in[0;h(\kappa_1)]$. The proofs rely on classical arguments of spectral theory such as the max-min principle. The main originality lies rather in the delicate use of the features of the geometry

Compact imbeddings in electromagnetism with interfaces between classical materials and meta-materials

21 pagesIn a meta-material, the electric permittivity and/or the magnetic permeability can be negative in given frequency ranges. We investigate the solution of the time-harmonic Maxwell equations in a composite material, made up of classical materials, and meta-materials with negative electric permittivity, in a two-dimensional bounded domain Ω. We study the imbedding of the space of electric fields into L²(Ω)². In particular, we extend the famous result of Weber, proving that it is compact. This result is obtained by studying the regularity of the fields. We first isolate their most singular part, using a decomposition à la Birman-Solomyak. With the help of the Mellin transform, we prove that this singular part belongs to Hˢ(Ω)², for some s > 0. Finally, we show that the compact imbedding result holds as soon as no ratio of permittivities between two adjacent materials is equal to −1