We consider a non-relativistic quantum particle in $\mathbb{R}^d$, $d=2$ or $d = 3$, interacting with singular zero-range potentials concentrated on a large collection of points. We analyze the homogenization regime where the intensities of the singular potentials and the distances between the points simultaneously go to zero as their number grows, while the total interaction strength remains finite. Assuming that the singular potentials have negative scattering lengths and are uniformly distributed, we prove the strong resolvent convergence as $N \to \infty$ of the family of operators to a Schrödinger operator with a regular electrostatic potential. The result is obtained via $Γ$-converge of the associated quadratic forms. Moreover, in presence of an external trapping potential, the convergence is lifted to uniform resolvent sense.
We consider a non-relativistic quantum particle in Rd, d=2 or d=3, interacting with singular zero-range potentials concentrated on a large collection of points. We analyze the homogenization regime where the intensities of the singular potentials and the distances between the points simultaneously go to zero as their number grows, while the total interaction strength remains finite. Assuming that the singular potentials have negative scattering lengths and are uniformly distributed, we prove the strong resolvent convergence as N→∞ of the family of operators to a Schrödinger operator with a regular electrostatic potential. The result is obtained via Γ-converge of the associated quadratic forms. Moreover, in presence of an external trapping potential, the convergence is lifted to uniform resolvent sense.
We consider a Hamiltonian describing three quantum particles in dimension one interacting through two-body short-range potentials. We prove that, as a suitable scale parameter in the potential terms goes to zero, such a Hamiltonian converges to one with zero-range (also called delta or point) interactions. The convergence is understood in the norm resolvent sense. The two-body rescaled potentials are of the form vσε(xσ)=ε−1vσ(ε−1xσ), where σ = 23, 12, 31 is an index that runs over all the possible pairings of the three particles, xσ is the relative coordinate between two particles, and ε is the scale parameter. The limiting Hamiltonian is the one formally obtained by replacing the potentials vσ with ασδσ, where δσ is the Dirac delta-distribution centered on the coincidence hyperplane xσ = 0 and ασ=∫Rvσdxσ. To prove the convergence of the resolvents, we make use of Faddeev’s equations.
Abstract We re-investigate the entire family of many center point interaction Hamiltonians. Under the assumption of exchange symmetry with respect to the point positions, we show that a large sub-family of point interaction Hamiltonian operators does not become either singular or trivial when the positions of two or more scattering centers tend to coincide. In this sense, they appear to be renormalized by default as opposed to the point interaction Hamiltonians usually considered in the literature. Functions in their domains satisfy regularized boundary conditions which turn out to be very similar to the ones proposed recently in many-body quantum mechanics to define three-particle system Hamiltonians with contact interactions bounded from below. In the two-center case, we study the behavior of the negative eigenvalues as a function of the center distance. The result is used to analyze a formal Born–Oppenheimer approximation of a three-particle system with two heavy bosons and one light particle. We demonstrate that this simplified model describes a stable system (no ‘fall to the center’ problem is present). Furthermore, in the unitary limit, the energy spectrum is characterized by an infinite sequence of negative energy eigenvalues accumulating at zero according to the geometrical Efimov law.
Consider a system of N bosons in three dimensions interacting via a repulsive short range pair potential N2V(N(xi−xj)), where $\bx=(x_1, >..., x_N)$ denotes the positions of the particles. Let HN denote the Hamiltonian of the system and let ψN,t be the solution to the Schrodinger equation. Suppose that the initial data ψN,0 satisfies the energy condition ≤CN>. and that the one-particle density matrix converges to a projection as N→∞. Then, we prove that the k-particle density matrices of ψN,t factorize in the limit N→∞. Moreover, the one particle orbital wave function solves the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation, a cubic non-linear Schrodinger equation with the coupling constant proportional to the scattering length of the potential V. In \cite{ESY}, we proved the same statement under the condition that the interaction potential V is sufficiently small; in the present work we extend this result to large potentials.
In the setting of the fractional quantum Hall effect we study the effects of strong, repulsive two-body interaction potentials of short range. We prove that Haldane's pseudo-potential operators, including their pre-factors, emerge as mathematically rigorous limits of such interactions when the range of the potential tends to zero while its strength tends to infinity. In a common approach the interaction potential is expanded in angular momentum eigenstates in the lowest Landau level, which amounts to taking the pre-factors to be the moments of the potential. Such a procedure is not appropriate for very strong interactions, however, in particular not in the case of hard spheres. We derive the formulas valid in the short-range case, which involve the scattering lengths of the interaction potential in different angular momentum channels rather than its moments. Our results hold for bosons and fermions alike and generalize previous results in [6], which apply to bosons in the lowest angular momentum channel. Our main theorem asserts the convergence in a norm-resolvent sense of the Hamiltonian on the whole Hilbert space, after appropriate energy scalings, to Hamiltonians with contact interactions in the lowest Landau level.
This issue comprises two dozen research papers which are all in one sense or another devoted to models in which the interaction is singular and sharply localized; a typical example is a quantum particle interacting with a family of δ-type potentials. Such an idealization usually makes analysis of their properties considerably easier, sometimes allowing us to reduce it to a simple algebraic problem—this is why one speaks about solvable models. The subject can be traced back to the early days of quantum mechanics; however, the progress in this field was slow and uneven until the 1960s, mostly because singular interactions are often difficult to deal with mathematically and intuitive arguments do not work. After overcoming the initial difficulties the `classical' theory of point interactions was developed, and finally summarized in 1988 in a monograph by Albeverio, Gesztesy, Høegh-Krohn, and Holden, which you will find quoted in numerous places within this issue. A reliable way to judge theories is to observe the progress they make within one or two decades. In this case there is no doubt that the field has witnessed a continuous development and covered areas which nobody had thought of when the subject first emerged. The reader may see it in the second edition of the aforementioned book which was published by AMS Chelsea only recently and contained a brief survey of these new achievements. It is no coincidence that this topical issue appears at the same time; it has been conceived as its counterpart and a forum at which fresh results in the field can demonstrated. Let us briefly survey the contents of the issue. While the papers included have in common the basic subject, they represent a broad spectrum philosophically as well as technically, and any attempt to classify them is somewhat futile. Nevertheless, we will divide them into a few groups. The first comprises contributions directly related to the usual point-interaction ideology. M Correggi and one of the editors study a toy model of a decay under the influence of a time-periodic δ potential. E Demiralp describes the spectrum of a spherical harmonic oscillator amended with a concentric family of δ-shell interactions. Another of the editors presents an isoperimetric problem for point interactions arranged at vertices of a polygon. W Huddell and R Hughes show how singular perturbations of a one-dimensional Dirac operator can be approximated by regular potentials, and J Brasche constructs a family of Hamiltonians in which the singular interaction has a more complicated support, namely a Brownian path. Finally, B Pavlov and I Antoniou apply the singular perturbation technique to another classical Hamiltonian, that of a generalized Friedrichs model; no matter that the unperturbed observable is called momentum in their paper. The three papers in the following group are distinguished by the fact that they consider systems which are fully or partially periodic. F Bentosela and M Tater analyse scattering on a crystalline `slab' modelled by point interactions distributed periodically on a finite number of parallel plates. E de Prunelé studies evolution of wavepackets in crystal models of different geometries, and M Avdonin et al discuss a simple model of a spin-dependent scattering on a one-dimensional array of quantum dots. The next group of papers is devoted to a topic which was untouched at the time of the aforementioned first edition, namely quantum graphs, which became a subject of interest after numerous applications of such systems to semiconductor, carbon and other nanostructures. Most contributions here deal with the `usual' model in which the Hamiltonian is a Schrödinger operator supported by the graph. P Kuchment describes spectral properties of such graphs, in particular periodic ones and those with decorations. S Albeverio and K Pankrashkin present a modification of Krein's formula which is suitable for constructing Hamiltonians of quantum graphs using boundary conditions at vertices directly. Two papers are devoted to inverse problems in this context: M Harmer studies inverse scattering for the matrix Schrödinger operator on the halfline with applications to star graphs, while P Kurasov and M Nowaczyk give a mathematically rigorous version of the known Gutkin–Smilansky result on the inverse spectral problem. The paper by O Post contributes to the question of how graphs can be approximated by more realistic `fat' graphs, and describes a class leading to disconnected quantum graphs. Finally, S Kondej and one of the editors study scattering in the context of `leaky' graphs which takes quantum tunnelling into account. While most results in this field describe one-particle Hamiltonians, more complicated systems have also been studied. In this issue we have three examples. C Cacciapuito, R Carlone, and R Figari discuss decoherence in a simple model of two particles, one heavy and one light, interacting through a δ potential; they give a rigorous meaning to a formula derived by Joos and Zeh. A related model by R Figari and A Teta is used to describe ionization. M Hallnäs, E Langmann, and C Paufler treat a true N -body situation, namely a model of one-dimensional gas of distinguishable particles interacting through generalized point interactions; they write the Bethe ansatz and present the solution of a particular case. The last group is a collection of contributions which in one sense or another are outside quantum mechanics, either modifying its postulates or applying it to a different physical situation. The latter applies to the paper of D Noja and A Posilicano in which they study nonlinear wave equations with point perturbations and show the existence of a solution to the Cauchy problem. F Coutinho et al discuss one-dimensional point interactions with energy-dependent coupling constant, S Albeverio and S Kuzhel examine a class of point interactions which are not symmetric but P-symmetric, where P is the parity operator, and M Znojil and V Jakubský consider a `double-well' PT-symmetric model with two δ interactions with an imaginary coupling. The last two papers present mathematical constructions. Yu Shondin demonstrates a way to define an interaction more singular than the usual δ potentials obtained by means of self-adjoint extensions, and V Koshmanenko presents a construction of strongly singular perturbations leading to rather unusual `Hamiltonians'.
This paper studies the Fourier spectral method (FSM) for the Schrödinger equation with singular potentials V∈Hs, where s>max{d/2−2,−1} and d denotes the spatial dimension. This setting includes a broad class of singular potentials, such as the 3D Coulomb potential and the 1D Dirac-delta potential. First, we combine the Feshbach-Schur map with a refined perturbation argument to derive sharp convergence orders for FSM, yielding order 2s+2 for eigenvalues and order s+1 for eigenfunctions in the H1 norm. More importantly, the H1 error with respect to the projected eigenfunction converges with a higher order s+1+b, where b=min{s+2−d/2−ε,s+1,2}>0 for arbitrarily small ε>0, revealing a super-convergence phenomenon. Second, in the presence of potentials with isolated point singularities, we develop an asymptotic-recovery (AR) technique to post-process the FSM solutions. The resulting method, dubbed AR-FSM, fully exploits the super-convergence property and achieves convergence orders 2s+2+2b for eigenvalues and s+1+b for eigenfunctions in the H1 norm, while the AR post-processing requires only a computational cost that is linear in the number of FSM degrees of freedom. The analysis introduces a rigorous definition of point singularities and develops a foundational framework for their study. It further establishes an asymptotic expansion of eigenfunctions consisting of a regular component in Hs+4 together with d+1 asymptotic functions associated with each singular point. Numerical experiments confirm the sharpness of these theoretical bounds.