Related papers: Antilinearity Rather than Hermiticity as a Guiding…
Large families of Hamiltonians that are non-Hermitian in the conventional sense have been found to have all eigenvalues real, a fact attributed to an unbroken PT symmetry. The corresponding quantum theories possess an unconventional scalar…
Recently, much research has been carried out on Hamiltonians that are not Hermitian but are symmetric under space-time reflection, that is, Hamiltonians that exhibit PT symmetry. Investigations of the Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problem…
The Hamiltonian H specifies the energy levels and time evolution of a quantum theory. A standard axiom of quantum mechanics requires that H be Hermitian because Hermiticity guarantees that the energy spectrum is real and that time evolution…
A physical requirement on the Hamiltonian operator in quantum mechanics is that it must generate real energy spectrum and unitary time evolution. While the Hamiltonians are Dirac Hermitian in conventional quantum mechanics, they observe…
Despite its common use in quantum theory, the mathematical requirement of Dirac Hermiticity of a Hamiltonian is sufficient to guarantee the reality of energy eigenvalues but not necessary. By establishing three theorems, this paper gives…
We introduce the notion of pseudo-Hermiticity and show that every Hamiltonian with a real spectrum is pseudo-Hermitian. We point out that all the PT-symmetric non-Hermitian Hamiltonians studied in the literature belong to the class of…
Canonical quantum mechanics postulates Hermitian Hamiltonians to ensure real eigenvalues. Counterintuitively, a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, satisfying combined parity-time (PT) symmetry, could display entirely real spectra above some…
Non-Hermitian systems satisfying parity-time (PT) symmetry have aroused considerable interest owing to their exotic features. Anti-PT symmetry is an important counterpart of the PT symmetry, and has been studied in various classical…
Quantum systems governed by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with $\PT$ symmetry are special in having real energy eigenvalues bounded below and unitary time evolution. We argue that $\PT$ symmetry may also be important and present at the level…
A Hamiltonian $H$ that is not Hermitian can still have a real and complete energy eigenspectrum if it instead is $PT$ symmetric. For such Hamiltonians three possible inner products have been considered in the literature, the $V$ norm, the…
The recognition that the eigenvalues of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian could all be real if the Hamiltonian had an antilinear symmetry such as $PT$ stimulated new insight into the underlying structure of quantum mechanics. Specifically, it…
We extend the definition of generalized parity $P$, charge-conjugation $C$ and time-reversal $T$ operators to nondiagonalizable pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonians, and we use these generalized operators to describe the full set of symmetries of…
Update: A time-independent $n\times n$ PT-symmetric (and symmetric) Hamiltonian is diagonalizable since it has all distinct real eigenvalues and the resulting diagonal matrix is a real symmetric matrix. The diagonalization results an…
We show that a diagonalizable (non-Hermitian) Hamiltonian H is pseudo-Hermitian if and only if it has an antilinear symmetry, i.e., a symmetry generated by an invertible antilinear operator. This implies that the eigenvalues of H are real…
The Hamiltonian for quantum electrodynamics becomes non-Hermitian if the unrenormalized electric charge $e$ is taken to be imaginary. However, if one also specifies that the potential $A^\mu$ in such a theory transforms as a pseudovector…
A non-Hermitian Hamiltonian has a real positive spectrum and exhibits unitary time evolution if the Hamiltonian possesses an unbroken PT (space-time reflection) symmetry. The proof of unitarity requires the construction of a linear operator…
In a remarkable development Bender and coworkers have shown that it is possible to formulate quantum mechanics consistently even if the Hamiltonian and other observables are not Hermitian. Their formulation, dubbed PT quantum mechanics,…
A real potential Hamiltonian has real energy bound states below the scattering threshold and complex energy resonances above it. Scattering states are not square integrable, being instead delta function normalized. This lack of square…
It is generally assumed that a Hamiltonian for a physically acceptable quantum system (one that has a positive-definite spectrum and obeys the requirement of unitarity) must be Hermitian. However, a PT-symmetric Hamiltonian can also define…
We introduce a general framework for realizing $\mathcal{PT}$-like phase transitions in non-Hermitian systems without imposing explicit parity--time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetry. The approach is based on constructing a Hamiltonian as the…