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Hamiltonian for the zeros of the Riemann zeta function

Quantum Physics 2017-04-04 v4 Mathematical Physics Functional Analysis math.MP Number Theory

Abstract

A Hamiltonian operator H^\hat H is constructed with the property that if the eigenfunctions obey a suitable boundary condition, then the associated eigenvalues correspond to the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function. The classical limit of H^\hat H is 2xp2xp, which is consistent with the Berry-Keating conjecture. While H^\hat H is not Hermitian in the conventional sense, iH^{\rm i}{\hat H} is PT{\cal PT} symmetric with a broken PT{\cal PT} symmetry, thus allowing for the possibility that all eigenvalues of H^\hat H are real. A heuristic analysis is presented for the construction of the metric operator to define an inner-product space, on which the Hamiltonian is Hermitian. If the analysis presented here can be made rigorous to show that H^{\hat H} is manifestly self-adjoint, then this implies that the Riemann hypothesis holds true.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1608.03679,
  title  = {Hamiltonian for the zeros of the Riemann zeta function},
  author = {Carl M. Bender and Dorje C. Brody and Markus P. Müller},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.03679},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

5 pages, version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett