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arXiv:2606.15303

The inverted Dirac oscillator

Mustapha Maamache

quant-phSubmitted Jun 13, 2026• Announced Jun 16, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Aug 3, 2026 (v3)

v1 · Jun 13, 2026 v2 · Jul 30, 2026 v3 · Aug 3, 2026 v4 · Aug 12, 2026

Abstract

We introduce the Dirac Inverted Oscillator, a new exactly solvable relativistic quantum system obtained through a Hermitian modification of the generalized momentum operator in the Dirac equation. In contrast to the conventional Dirac oscillator, where the generalized momentum is intrinsically non-Hermitian while the Hamiltonian remains Hermitian, the present construction reverses these Hermiticity properties: the generalized momentum becomes Hermitian, whereas the corresponding Dirac Hamiltonian is intrinsically non-Hermitian. This inversion leads to a new class of relativistic Hamiltonians within the framework of non-Hermitian quantum mechanics. Starting from the stationary Dirac equation, we derive the corresponding second-order wave equation and establish the generalized symmetry properties of the model, including pseudo-Hermiticity and pseudosymmetry. We then prove that the Dirac Inverted Oscillator is exactly related to the conventional Dirac oscillator through a Hermitian but non-unitary similarity transformation generated by a dilation operator. This transformation is bijective and invertible, mapping the original non-Hermitian relativistic problem onto an equivalent Hermitian Schrodinger eigenvalue problem while preserving its complete spectral structure. The transformed Hermitian problem is solved analytically, allowing the exact relativistic spectrum and the corresponding eigenfunctions of the original non-Hermitian Hamiltonian to be determined explicitly. The present work therefore establishes an exact correspondence between a non-Hermitian relativistic Dirac system and a Hermitian Schrodinger problem, providing a new exactly solvable model and illustrating the effectiveness of Hermitian non-unitary similarity transformations for constructing analytically solvable relativistic Hamiltonians beyond the conventional Hermitian framework.

Comments: 11 pages

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In a recent paper Bender and Mannheim showed that the unequal-frequency fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model has a realization in which the energy eigenvalues are real and bounded below, the Hilbert-space inner product is positive definite, and time evolution is unitary. Central to that analysis was the recognition that the Hamiltonian

{H}_{\mathrm{PU}}

of the model is

\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}

symmetric. This Hamiltonian was mapped to a conventional Dirac-Hermitian Hamiltonian via a similarity transformation whose form was found exactly. The present paper explores the equal-frequency limit of the same model. It is shown that in this limit the similarity transform that was used for the unequal-frequency case becomes singular and that

{H}_{\mathrm{PU}}

becomes a Jordan-block operator, which is nondiagonalizable and has fewer energy eigenstates than eigenvalues. Such a Hamiltonian has no Hermitian counterpart. Thus, the equal-frequency

\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}

theory emerges as a distinct realization of quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanics associated with this Jordan-block Hamiltonian can be treated exactly. It is shown that the Hilbert space is complete with a set of nonstationary solutions to the Schr\"odinger equation replacing the missing stationary ones. These nonstationary states are needed to establish that the Jordan-block Hamiltonian of the equal-frequency Pais-Uhlenbeck model generates unitary time evolution.