The Physical Interpretation of PT-invariant Potentials

Stefan Weigert

doi:10.1023/B:CJOP.0000044016.95629.a7

The Physical Interpretation of PT-invariant Potentials

Stefan Weigert

Mathematics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

A purely imaginary potential can provide a phenomenological description of creation and absorption of quantum mechanical particles. PT invariance of such a potential ensures that the non-unitary phenomena occur in a balanced manner. In spite of wells and sinks which locally violate the conservation of quantum probability, there is no net get loss or gain of particles. This, in turn, is intuitively consistent with real energy eigenvalues.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1139-1142
Number of pages	4
Journal	Czech J. Phys.
Volume	54
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CJOP.0000044016.95629.a7
Publication status	Published - Oct 2004

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10.1023/B:CJOP.0000044016.95629.a7

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0407132

Cite this

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AB - A purely imaginary potential can provide a phenomenological description of creation and absorption of quantum mechanical particles. PT invariance of such a potential ensures that the non-unitary phenomena occur in a balanced manner. In spite of wells and sinks which locally violate the conservation of quantum probability, there is no net get loss or gain of particles. This, in turn, is intuitively consistent with real energy eigenvalues.

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