English

Is space-time symmetry a suitable generalization of parity-time symmetry?

Quantum Physics 2015-06-19 v1

Abstract

We discuss space-time symmetric Hamiltonian operators of the form % H=H_{0}+igH^{\prime}, where H0H_{0} is Hermitian and gg real. H0H_{0} is invariant under the unitary operations of a point group GG while HH^{\prime} is invariant under transformation by elements of a subgroup GG^{\prime} of GG. If GG exhibits irreducible representations of dimension greater than unity, then it is possible that HH has complex eigenvalues for sufficiently small nonzero values of gg. In the particular case that HH is parity-time symmetric then it appears to exhibit real eigenvalues for all % 0<g<g_{c}, where gcg_{c} is the exceptional point closest to the origin. Point-group symmetry and perturbation theory enable one to predict whether % H may exhibit real or complex eigenvalues for g>0g>0. We illustrate the main theoretical results and conclusions of this paper by means of two- and three-dimensional Hamiltonians exhibiting a variety of different point-group symmetries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1405.5234,
  title  = {Is space-time symmetry a suitable generalization of parity-time symmetry?},
  author = {Paolo Amore and Francisco M. Fernández and Javier Garcia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.5234},
  year   = {2015}
}