Spectral gaps for the Dirichlet‐Laplacian in a 3‐D waveguide periodically perturbed by a family of concentrated masses

We consider a spectral problem for the Laplace operator in a periodic waveguide perturbed by a family of “heavy concentrated masses”; namely, Π contains small regions of high density, which are periodically distributed along the z axis. Each domain has a diameter and the density takes the value in and 1 outside; m and ε are positive parameters, , . Considering a Dirichlet boundary condition, we study the band‐gap structure of the essential spectrum of the corresponding operator as . We provide information on the width of the first bands and find asymptotic formulas for the localization of the possible gaps.