PT symmetry and the square well potential: Antilinear symmetry rather than Hermiticity in scattering processes (2505.07798v1)

Abstract: While a Hamiltonian with a real potential acts as a Hermitian operator when it operates on bound states, it produces resonances with complex energies in a scattering experiment. The scattering states are not square integrable, being instead delta function normalized. This lack of square integrability breaks the connection between Hermiticity and real eigenvalues, to thus allow for real bound state sector eigenvalues and complex scattering sector eigenvalues. When written as contour integrals delta functions take support in the complex plane, with the scattering amplitude being able to take support in the complex energy plane too. However, the scattering amplitude is $CPT$ symmetric (or $PT$ symmetric if $C$ is conserved), regardless of whether states are square integrable or not. For resonance scattering this antilinear symmetry requires the presence of a complex conjugate pair of energies, one to describe the excitation of the resonance and the other to describe its decay, with it being their interplay that enforces probability conservation. Each complex pair of energy eigenvalues corresponds to only one observable resonance not two. Our analysis shows that the nonrelativistic square well problem with a real potential possesses $PT$ symmetry in both the bound and scattering sectors, with there being complex conjugate pairs of energy eigenvalues in the scattering sector.