  We introduce a theory to describe disorder-induced scattering in photonic
crystal waveguides, specifically addressing the influence of local field
effects and scattering within high-index-contrast perturbations. Local field
effects are shown to increase the predicted disorder-induced scattering loss
and result in significant resonance shifts of the waveguide mode. We
demonstrate that two types of frequency shifts can be expected, a mean
frequency shift and a RMS frequency shift, both acting in concert to blueshift
and broaden the nominal band structure. For a representative waveguide, we
predict substantial meV frequency shifts and band structure broadening for a
telecommunications operating frequency, even for state of the art fabrication.
The disorder-induced broadening is found to increase as the propagation
frequency approaches the slow light regime (mode edge) due to restructuring of
the electric field distribution. These findings have a dramatic impact on
high-index-contrast nanoscale waveguides, and, for photonic crystal waveguides,
suggest that the nominal slow-light mode edge may not even exist. Furthermore,
our results shed new light on why it has hitherto been impossible to observe
the very slow light regime for photonic crystal waveguides.
