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Semiclassical tunneling for some 1D Schr\"odinger operators with complex-valued potentials

Mathematical Physics 2026-03-31 v2 math.MP Spectral Theory

Abstract

We consider the non-selfadjoint, semiclassical Schr\"odinger operator L(h):=h2x2+eiαV\mathscr{L}(h) := -h^2\partial_x^2+e^{i\alpha}V, where α(π,π)\alpha \in (-\pi,\pi) and V:RR+V: \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}_+ is even and vanishes at exactly two (symmetric) non-degenerate minima. We establish a semiclassical tunneling result: the spectrum of L(h)\mathscr{L}(h) near the origin is given by a sequence of algebraically simple eigenvalues which come in exponentially close pairs (within a O(eS/h)\mathscr{O}(e^{-S/h}) distance where S>0S > 0 is explicit), each pair being separated from the others by a distance O(h)\mathscr{O}(h). A one-term estimate of the gap between the two smallest eigenvalues in magnitude is derived; it reveals that, when α0\alpha \neq 0, they quickly rotate around each other as hh goes to 00.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.04296,
  title  = {Semiclassical tunneling for some 1D Schr\"odinger operators with complex-valued potentials},
  author = {Martin Averseng and Nicolas Frantz and Frédéric Hérau and Nicolas Raymond},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.04296},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:18:07.543Z