Low energy modes and Debye behaviour in a colloidal crystal

Abstract: We study the vibrational spectrum and the low energy modes of a three dimensional colloidal crystal using confocal microscopy. This is done in a two-dimensional cut through a three-dimensional crystal. We find that the observed density of states is incompatible with the standard Debye form in either two or three dimensions. These results are confirmed by numerical simulations. We show that an effective theory for the projections of the modes onto the two-dimensional cut describes the experimental and simulation data in a satisfactory way.