Tunneling in soft waveguides:closing a book

Abstract

We investigate the spectrum of a soft quantum waveguide in two dimensions of the generalized `bookcover' shape, that is, Schr\"odinger operator with the potential in the form of a ditch consisting of a finite curved part and straight asymptotes which are parallel or almost parallel pointing in the same direction. We show how the eigenvalues accumulate when the angle between the asymptotes tends to zero. In case of parallel asymptotes the existence of a discrete spectrum depends on the ditch profile. We prove that it is absent in the weak-coupling case, on the other hand, it exists provided the transverse potential is strong enough. We also present a numerical example in which the critical strength can be assessed.