Fock Space Representations for Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians

Abstract

The requirement of Hermiticity of a Quantum Mechanical Hamiltonian, for the description of physical processes with real eigenvalues which has been challenged notably by Carl Bender, is examined for the case of a Fock space Hamilitonian which is bilinear in two creation and destruction operators. An interpretation of this model as a Schrödinger operator leads to an identification of the Hermitian form of the Hamiltonian as the Landau model of a charged particle in a plane, interacting with a constant magnetic field at right angles to the plane. When the parameters of the Hamiltonian are suitably adjusted to make it non-Hermitian, the model represents two harmonic oscillators at right angles interacting with a constant magnetic field in the third direction, but with a pure imaginary coupling, and real energy eigenvalues. It is now $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ symmetric. Multiparticle states are investigated.

LaTeX2e, 18 pages