The Helmholtz equation $-\nabla\cdot (a\nabla u) - \omega^2 u = f$ is considered in an unbounded wave guide $\Omega := \mathbb{R} \times S \subset \mathbb{R}^d$ , $S\subset \mathbb{R}^{d-1}$ a bounded domain. The coefficient a is strictly elliptic and either periodic in the unbounded direction $x_1 \in \mathbb{R}$ or periodic outside a compact subset; in the latter case, two different periodic media can be used in the two unbounded directions. For non-singular frequencies $\omega$ , we show the existence of a solution u. While previous proofs of such results were based on analyticity arguments within operator theory, here, only energy methods are used.

This work concerns multiple-scattering problems for time-harmonic equations in a reference generic media. We consider scatterers that can be sources, obstacles or compact perturbations of the reference media. Our aim is to restrict the computational domain to small compact domains containing the scatterers. We use Robin-to-Robin (RtR) operators (in the most general case) to express boundary conditions for the interior problem. We show that one can always factorize the RtR map using only operators defined using single-scatterer problems. This factorization is based on a decomposition of the diffracted field, on the whole domain where it is defined. Assuming that there exists a good method for solving single-scatterer problems, it then gives a convenient way to compute RtR maps for a random number of scatterers.