On the limit of spectral gap formation via Bragg's reflection

Abstract: Although it is well recognized that waves propagating in periodic media have forbidden gaps in the continuous spectrum, it is still yet unknown about the minimum number and depth of periodic modulations for clear spectral formation. This limit is explored by investigating shear Alfv\'{e}n waves propagating through magnetic mirror array in a low temperature plasma cylinder, referring to an existing experiment [Zhang et al., Phys. Plasmas 15, 012103 (2008)]. It is found that the bottom-edge ratio, a defined parameter characterizing how "noisy" the formed spectral gap is, scales inversely with the square of the number and depth of magnetic mirrors, and they should be bigger than $7$ and $0.4$ respectively to form a clear spectral gap for the plasma conditions employed. This scaling is consistent with a pervious analysis [Kryuchkyan and Hatsagortsyan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 053604 (2011)], and also applicable to other fields such as optics and semiconductors. Moreover, it shows that the center of spectral gap experiences a parabolic shape of descending frequency shift when the modulation depth is increased, which is believed to be a new discovery.