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PT-symmetry entails pseudo-Hermiticity regardless of diagonalizability (1904.01967v1)
Published 1 Apr 2019 in quant-ph, math-ph, math.MP, and physics.plasm-ph
Abstract: We prove that in finite dimensions, a Parity-Time (PT)-symmetric Hamiltonian is necessarily pseudo-Hermitian regardless of whether it is diagonalizable or not. This result is different from Mostafazadeh's, which requires the Hamiltonian to be diagonalizable. PT-symmetry breaking often occurs at exceptional points where the Hamiltonian is not diagonalizable. Our result implies that PT-symmetry breaking is equivalent to the onset of instabilities of pseudo-Hermitian systems, which was systematically studied by Krein et al. in 1950s. In particular, we show that the mechanism of PT-symmetry breaking is the resonance between eigenmodes with different Krein signatures.