Symmetries and invariants for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians
Abstract
We discuss Hamiltonian symmetries and invariants for quantum systems driven by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. For time-independent Hermitian Hamiltonians, a unitary or antiunitary transformation that leaves the Hamiltonian unchanged represents a symmetry of the Hamiltonian, which implies the commutativity , and a conservation law, namely the invariance of expectation values of . For non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, comes into play as a distinct operator that complements in generalized unitarity relations. The above description of symmetries has to be extended to include also -pseudohermiticity relations of the form . A superoperator formulation of Hamiltonian symmetries is provided and exemplified for Hamiltonians of a particle moving in one-dimension considering the set of operators forming Klein's 4-group: parity, time-reversal, parity\&time-reversal, and unity. The link between symmetry and conservation laws is discussed and shown to be more subtle for non-Hermitian than for Hermitian Hamiltonians.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1805.04968,
title = {Symmetries and invariants for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians},
author = {M. A. Simón Martínez and A. Buendía and J. G. Muga},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.04968},
year = {2018}
}