Justification of the Lattice Equation for a Nonlinear Elliptic Problem with a Periodic Potential

We justify the use of the lattice equation (the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation) for the tight-binding approximation of stationary localized solutions in the context of a continuous nonlinear elliptic problem with a periodic potential. We rely on properties of the Floquet band-gap spectrum and the Fourier–Bloch decomposition for a linear Schrödinger operator with a periodic potential. Solutions of the nonlinear elliptic problem are represented in terms of Wannier functions and the problem is reduced, using elliptic theory, to a set of nonlinear algebraic equations solvable with the Implicit Function Theorem. Our analysis is developed for a class of piecewise-constant periodic potentials with disjoint spectral bands, which reduce, in a singular limit, to a periodic sequence of infinite walls of a non-zero width. The discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation is applied to classify localized solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation with a periodic potential.