English

Pseudo-Hermiticity protects the energy-difference conservation in the scattering

Quantum Physics 2023-10-05 v1 Optics

Abstract

Symmetry plays a fundamentally important role in physics. In this work, we find a conservation law, S(Hc)S(Hc)=IS^{\dagger}(H_{c}^{\dagger})S(H_{c})=I, which is valid for any non-Hermitian scattering center HcH_c. As a result, the reflections and transmissions of a non-Hermitian system {r,t}\left\{ r,t\right\} and its Hermitian conjugation system {rˉ,tˉ}\left\{ \bar{r},\bar{t}\right\} satisfy the conservation law rˉr+tˉt=1\bar{r}^{\ast}r+\bar{t}^{\ast}t=1, instead of the energy conservation law that applies to incoming and outgoing waves in a Hermitian system. Consequently, the pseudo-Hermiticity of a non-Hermitian system ensures an energy-difference conservation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the energy-difference conservation is respectively valid and invalid in two prototypical anti-PT\mathcal{PT}-symmetric systems, where the energy-difference conservation is protected by the pseudo-Hermiticity. Our findings provide profound insight into the conservation law, the pseudo-Hermiticity, and the anti-PT\mathcal{PT}-symmetry in non-Hermitian systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.02908,
  title  = {Pseudo-Hermiticity protects the energy-difference conservation in the scattering},
  author = {H. S. Xu and L. Jin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.02908},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

9 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:40:33.107Z