Related papers: Quantum phase transitions in nonhermitian harmonic…
In quantum mechanics the unitary evolution is most often described in a pre-selected Hilbert space ${\cal H}^{(textbook)}$ in which, due to the Stone theorem, the Schr\"odinger-picture Hamiltonian is self-adjoint,…
A $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric, non-Hermitian Hamiltonian in the $\mathcal{PT}$-unbroken regime can lead to unitary dynamics under the appropriate choice of the Hilbert space. The Hilbert space is determined by a Hamiltonian-compatible inner…
In ${\cal PT}-$symmetric quantum mechanics one of the most characteristic mathematical features of the formalism is the explicit Hamiltonian-dependence of the physical Hilbert space of states ${\cal H}={\cal H}(H)$. Some of the most…
A new version of the change of the "phase" (i.e., of the set of observable characteristics) of a quantum system is proposed. In a general scenario the evolution is assumed generated, before the phase transition, by some standard Hermitian…
The practical use of non-Hermitian (i.e., typically, PT-symmetric) phenomenological quantum Hamiltonians is discussed as requiring an explicit reconstruction of the {\em ad hoc} Hilbert-space metrics which would render the time-evolution…
Recently Bender, Brody, Jones and Meister found that in the quantum brachistochrone problem the passage time needed for the evolution of certain initial states into specified final states can be made arbitrarily small, when the…
This paper proposes to broaden the canonical formulation of quantum mechanics. Ordinarily, one imposes the condition $H^\dagger=H$ on the Hamiltonian, where $\dagger$ represents the mathematical operation of complex conjugation and matrix…
The phenomenon of quantum phase transition is considered in the special case in which the evolution laws remain unitary and in which the bound-state energies remain observable. The conventional Hermiticity of observables is lost at the…
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…
We study the time evolution of a PT-symmetric, non-Hermitian quantum system for which the associated phase space is compact. We focus on the simplest non-trivial example of such a Hamiltonian, which is linear in the angular momentum…
The simple harmonic oscillator has a well-known normalizable, positive energy, bound state spectrum. We show that degenerate with each such positive energy eigenvalue there is a non-normalizable positive energy eigenstate whose…
The Hamiltonian H specifies the energy levels and the time evolution of a quantum theory. It is an axiom of quantum mechanics that H be Hermitian because Hermiticity guarantees that the energy spectrum is real and that the time evolution is…
Three-parametric family of non-Hermitian but ${\cal PT}-$symmetric six-by-six matrix Hamiltonians $H^{(6)}(x,y,z)$ is considered. The ${\cal PT}-$symmetry remains spontaneously unbroken (i.e., the spectrum of the bound-state energies…
A class of pseudo-hermitian quantum system with an explicit form of the positive-definite metric in the Hilbert space is presented. The general method involves a realization of the basic canonical commutation relations defining the quantum…
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…
We provide time-evolution operators, gauge transformations and a perturbative treatment for non-Hermitian Hamiltonian systems, which are explicitly time-dependent. We determine various new equivalence pairs for Hermitian and non-Hermitian…
In a recent paper Bender and Mannheim showed that the unequal-frequency fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model has a realization in which the energy eigenvalues are real and bounded below, the Hilbert-space inner product is…
The ordinary time-dependent perturbation theory of quantum mechanics, that describes the interaction of a stationary system with a time-dependent perturbation, predicts that the transition probabilities induced by the perturbation are…
A non-Hermitian operator may serve as the Hamiltonian for a unitary quantum system, if we can modify the Hilbert space of state vectors of the system so that it turns into a Hermitian operator. If this operator is time-dependent, the…
PT-symmetric quantum mechanics is an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics in which the mathematical axiom of Hermiticity (transpose and complex conjugate) is replaced by the physically transparent condition of space-time reflection…