Rigged Hilbert Spaces for the Dirac formalism and time-symmetric quantum mechanics

Jean-Pierre Antoine, Arno Böhm, S. Wickramasekara

J. E. Roberts

Dollard, J D, Böhm, Arno

Arno Böhm, Nathan L. Harshman

Robert C. Bishop

Rafael de la Madrid

There is compelling evidence that, when a continuous spectrum is present, the natural mathematical setting for quantum mechanics is the rigged Hilbert space rather than just the Hilbert space. In particular, Dirac's bra-ket formalism is fully implemented by the rigged Hilbert space rather than just by the Hilbert space. In this paper, we provide a pedestrian introduction to the role the rigged Hilbert space plays in quantum mechanics, by way of a simple, exactly solvable example. The procedure will be constructive and based on a recent publication. We also provide a thorough discussion on the physical significance of the rigged Hilbert space.