Willy Dörfler

This book presents the notes from the seminar on wave phenomena given in 2019 at the Mathematical Research Center in Oberwolfach. The research on wave-type problems is a fascinating and emerging field in mathematical research with many challenging applications in sciences and engineering. Profound investigations on waves require a strong interaction of several mathematical disciplines including functional analysis, partial differential equations, mathematical modeling, mathematical physics, numerical analysis, and scientific computing. The goal of this book is to present a comprehensive introduction to the research on wave phenomena. Starting with basic models for acoustic, elastic, and electro-magnetic waves, topics such as the existence of solutions for linear and some nonlinear material laws, efficient discretizations and solution methods in space and time, and the application to inverse parameter identification problems are covered. The aim of this book is to intertwine analysis and numerical mathematics for wave-type problems promoting thus cooperative research projects in this field.

This book concentrates on the mathematics of photonic crystals, which form an important class of physical structures investigated in nanotechnology. Photonic crystals are materials which are composed of two or more different dielectrics or metals, and which exhibit a spatially periodic structure, typically at the length scale of hundred nanometers. In the mathematical analysis and the numerical simulation of the partial differential equations describing nanostructures, several mathematical difficulties arise, e. g., the appropriate treatment of nonlinearities, simultaneous occurrence of continuous and discrete spectrum, multiple scales in space and time, and the ill-posedness of these problems. This volume collects a series of lectures which introduce into the mathematical background needed for the modeling and simulation of light, in particular in periodic media, and for its applications in optical devices.