English

Localization of Neumann Eigenfunctions near Irregular Boundaries

Analysis of PDEs 2019-02-20 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks Mathematical Physics math.MP Spectral Theory

Abstract

It has been empirically observed that eigenfunctions of Laplace's equation Δϕ=λϕ-\Delta \phi = \lambda \phi with Neumann boundary conditions sometimes localize near the boundary of the domain if that boundary is rough (say, fractal). This has some nontrivial implications in acoustics that has been put to real-life use (sound attenuation by noise-protective walls); this short paper describes the mathematical mechanism responsible for this and describes the quantitative strength of the phenomenon for some examples.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.01108,
  title  = {Localization of Neumann Eigenfunctions near Irregular Boundaries},
  author = {Peter W. Jones and Stefan Steinerberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.01108},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T03:54:04.375Z