Abstract

We consider a family of periodic tight-binding models (combinatorial graphs) that have the minimal number of links between copies of the fundamental domain. For this family we establish a local condition of second derivative type under which the critical points of the dispersion relation can be recognized as global maxima or minima. Under the additional assumption of time-reversal symmetry, we show that any local extremum of a dispersion band is in fact a global extremum if the dimension of the periodicity group is 3 or less, or (in any dimension) if the critical point in question is a symmetry point of the Floquet–Bloch family with respect to complex conjugation. We demonstrate that our results are nearly optimal with a number of examples.

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