Universality of the momentum band density of periodic networks

Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Sep 27;111(13):130404. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.130404. Epub 2013 Sep 24.

Abstract

The momentum spectrum of a periodic network (quantum graph) has a band-gap structure. We investigate the relative density of the bands or, equivalently, the probability that a randomly chosen momentum belongs to the spectrum of the periodic network. We show that this probability exhibits universal properties. More precisely, the probability to be in the spectrum does not depend on the edge lengths (as long as they are generic) and is also invariant within some classes of graph topologies.