Close-to-touching acoustic subwavelength resonators: Eigenfrequency separation and gradient blow-up

In this paper, we study the behavior of the coupled subwavelength resonant modes when two high-contrast acoustic resonators are brought close together. We consider the case of spherical resonators and use bispherical coordinates to derive explicit representations for the capacitance coefficients which, we show, capture the system's resonant behavior at leading order. We prove that the pair of resonators has two subwavelength resonant modes whose frequencies have different leading-order asymptotic behavior. We also derive estimates for the rate at which the gradient of the scattered pressure wave blows up as the resonators are brought together.