On the absence of trapped modes in locally perturbed open waveguides

This paper presents a new approach for proving that the presence of a bounded defect in a uniform open waveguide cannot produce trapped modes, contrary to the case of a closed waveguide. The originality of the proof lies in the fact that it relies on a modal decomposition. It shows in particular that the absence of trapped modes results from a strong connection between the various modal components of the field. The case of the 3D scalar wave equation is considered.