 Zone folding in an equal-mass diatomic chain

Putting $M=m$ in the diatomic-chain dispersion relation with equal springs gives ${\omega }_{-}=2\sqrt{K/m}|\sin (kd/2)|$ and ${\omega }_{+}=2\sqrt{K/m}|\cos (kd/2)|$ in the reduced zone $|k|\le \pi /(2d)$. The branches touch at its edge. If the sites are actually identical, the true primitive unit cell has length $d$; the apparent optical phonon branch is the outer part of the monatomic-chain dispersion relation folded by an unnecessarily doubled cell. A gap does not appear merely from redrawing the zone.