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arXiv:2508.13194 · Symmetry

Short-Time Behavior of a System Ruled by Non-Hermitian Time-Dependent Hamiltonians

Benedetto Militello, Anna Napoli

Published Aug 15, 2025• 2 citations
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Abstract

The short-time behavior of the survival probability of a system governed by a time-dependent non-Hermitian Hamiltonian is derived using to the second-order perturbative approach. The resulting expression allows for the analysis of some situations which could be of interest in the field of quantum technology. For example, it becomes possible to predict a quantum Zeno effect even in the presence of decay processes.

DOI
10.3390/sym17081336

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The short-time behavior of the survival probability of a system governed by a time-dependent non-Hermitian Hamiltonian is derived using to the second-order perturbative approach. The resulting expression allows for the analysis of some situations which could be of interest in the field of quantum technology. For example, it becomes possible to predict a quantum Zeno effect even in the presence of decay processes.
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The characteristic short-time behavior of the survival probability of a decaying state, which underlies the quantum Zeno effect (QZE), is shown to follow quite simply from the Schr\"odinger equation even when the spectrum of the Hamiltonian has no finite lower bound, provided the mean energy of the initial state is finite. The failure of the Breit-Wigner form of energy distribution to predict QZE is traced to the nonexistence of a well-defined mean energy. On the basis of a suitably modified distribution, it is explicitly demonstrated that the existence of a finite lower bound to the energy distribution only affects the asymptotic decay law. For short times, the survival probability depends quadratically on time if the variance of the distribution is also finite, not otherwise. For a sufficiently well-behaved energy distribution, the asymptotic decay must be as ${t}^{{\ensuremath{-}}^{n}}$ if the spectrum has a finite lower bound, or faster than any inverse power of t if there is no lower bound.
We study the time evolution of decaying particles in the framework of certain renormalizable models of relativistic quantum field theory. Significant differences between the latter and the non-relativistic quantum mechanical case are found —in particular, regarding the so-called quantum Zeno effect. In some cases, the finite time behaviour is well defined after having performed a conventional renormalization. However, in other situations, the latter does not suffice to obtain finite survival probabilities. In all cases, the crucial consistency with Fermi’s golden rule holds. The analysis of the finite time evolution in relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT) and, in particular, the behaviour at short times of the survival probability of unstable particles in RQFT is a relevant matter as far as the foundations of quantum mechanics are concerned and has some peculiarities which make it to be worth studying. But before going to RQFT, we will briefly recapitulate the main features of the survival amplitude (SA) at
A rigorous and practical time-dependent formulation of quantum decay processes is obtained by converting the Hermitian Schrodinger problem into an equivalent non-Hermitian Schrodinger equation. The properties of the original Hermitian and the reduced non-Hermitian Hamiltonians are compared and the non-Hermitian formulation is shown to be consistent with the theorem of Fock and Krylov for the description of truly decaying states. A self-consistent non-unitary algorithm is developed and used to obtain expressions for the time-dependent transition amplitudes of interest; they automatically preserve the total probability in the sum space at all future times tau >0. The formalism is coded for application to the important problem of ionisation decay of a ground-state hydrogen atom coupled to a strong radiation field with a sub-threshold photon frequency. The first quantitative information on the time dependence of two- and three-photon (resonant and non-resonant) ionisation of the hydrogen atom is obtained.