The generalized vector space of quantum states is used to study the correspondence between the physical state space scrH and its continuation scrG. Consider the integral representation defined by the scalar product between an arbitrary vector in the dense subset of analytic vectors in scrH and its dual vector, where the integration is along the real axis. Keeping the scalar product fixed, the analytic vectors may be continued through the deformation of the integration contour. The deformed contour defines the generalized spectrum of the operator in the continued theory, which typically consists of a deformed contour in the fourth quadrant and the exposed singularities, if any, between the real axis and the deformed contour. Several models are studied with special attention to the unfolding of the generalized spectrum. The two-body models studied are the Lee model in the lowest sector and the Yamaguchi potential model, where the exposed singularities, if present, are simple poles. The three-body model studied is the cascade model, where the exposed singularities may be poles and the branch cuts associated with the quasi-two-body states. We demonstrate that the generalized spectrum obtained leads to the correct extended unitarity relation for the scattering amplitudes. The possibility of having mismatches between poles in the S matrix and the discrete states in the Hamiltonian, which exists in the scrH space, obtains also in the generalized scrG space. Finally, two distinct views on what constitutes an unstable particle are contrasted. One view is to identify it as a physical state of the system which ceases to exist as a discrete eigenstate in scrH. Here the survival amplitude of the unstable particle cannot be ever strictly exponential in time. The other view is to identify the unstable particle as a discrete state in the generalized space. It has a pure exponential time dependence. So the corresponding time evolution is realized by a semigroup. While the latter approach appears to be elegant, it is obtained at the expense of giving up the very starting premise of the lower boundedness of the energy spectrum and therefore we consider it to be the less desirable choice.
The generalized vector space of quantum states is used to study the correspondence between the physical state space scrH and its continuation scrG. Consider the integral representation defined by the scalar product between an arbitrary vector in the dense subset of analytic vectors in scrH and its dual vector, where the integration is along the real axis. Keeping the scalar product fixed, the analytic vectors may be continued through the deformation of the integration contour. The deformed contour defines the generalized spectrum of the operator in the continued theory, which typically consists of a deformed contour in the fourth quadrant and the exposed singularities, if any, between the real axis and the deformed contour. Several models are studied with special attention to the unfolding of the generalized spectrum. The two-body models studied are the Lee model in the lowest sector and the Yamaguchi potential model, where the exposed singularities, if present, are simple poles. The three-body model studied is the cascade model, where the exposed singularities may be poles and the branch cuts associated with the quasi-two-body states. We demonstrate that the generalized spectrum obtained leads to the correct extended unitarity relation for the scattering amplitudes. The possibility of having mismatches between poles in the S matrix and the discrete states in the Hamiltonian, which exists in the scrH space, obtains also in the generalized scrG space. Finally, two distinct views on what constitutes an unstable particle are contrasted. One view is to identify it as a physical state of the system which ceases to exist as a discrete eigenstate in scrH. Here the survival amplitude of the unstable particle cannot be ever strictly exponential in time. The other view is to identify the unstable particle as a discrete state in the generalized space. It has a pure exponential time dependence. So the corresponding time evolution is realized by a semigroup. While the latter approach appears to be elegant, it is obtained at the expense of giving up the very starting premise of the lower boundedness of the energy spectrum and therefore we consider it to be the less desirable choice.
We reexamine the problem of particle decay within the Hamiltonian formalism. By deforming contours of integration, the survival amplitude is expressed as a sum of purely exponential contributions arising from the simple poles of the resolvent on the second sheet plus a background integral along a complex contour $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ running below the location of the poles. We observe that the time dependence of the survival amplitude in the small-time region is strongly correlated to the asymptotic behavior of the energy spectrum of the system; we compute the small-time behavior of the survival amplitude for a wide variety of asymptotic behaviors. In the special case of the Lee model, using a formal procedure of analytic continuation, we show that a complete set of complex energy eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian can be associated with the poles of the resolvent and the background contour $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$. These poles and points along $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ correspond to the discrete and the continuum states, respectively. In this context, each unstable particle is associated with a well-defined object, which is a discrete generalized eigenstate of the Hamiltonian having a complex eigenvalue, with its real and negative imaginary parts being the mass and half-width of the particle, respectively. Finally, we briefly discuss the analytic continuation of the scattering amplitude within this generalized scheme, and note the appearance of "redundant poles" which do not correspond to discrete solutions of the modified eigenvalue problem.
The problem of decaying states and resonances is examined within the framework of scattering theory in a rigged Hilbert space formalism. The stationary free,’’in,’’ and ’’out’’ eigenvectors of formal scattering theory, which have a rigorous setting in rigged Hilbert space, are considered to be analytic functions of the energy eigenvalue. The value of these analytic functions at any point of regularity, real or complex, is an eigenvector with eigenvalue equal to the position of the point. The poles of the eigenvector families give origin to other eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian: the singularities of the ’’out’’ eigenvector family are the same as those of the continued S matrix, so that resonances are seen as eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian with eigenvalue equal to their location in the complex energy plane. Cauchy theorem then provides for expansions in terms of ’’complete’’ sets of eigenvectors with complex eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian. Applying such expansions to the survival amplitude of a decaying state, one finds that resonances give discrete contributions with purely exponential time behavior; the background is of course present, but explicitly separated. The resolvent of the Hamiltonian, restricted to the nuclear space appearing in the rigged Hilbert space, can be continued across the absolutely continuous spectrum; the singularities of the continuation are the same as those of the ’’out’’ eigenvectors. The free, ’’in’’ and ’’out’’ eigenvectors with complex eigenvalues and those corresponding to resonances can be approximated by physical vectors in the Hilbert space, as plane waves can. The need for having some further physical information in addition to the specification of the total Hamiltonian is apparent in the proposed framework. The formalism is applied to the Lee–Friedrichs model and to the scattering of a spinless particle by a local central potential.
We discuss the quantum Lax–Phillips theory of scattering and unstable systems. In this framework, the decay of an unstable system is described by a semigroup. The spectrum of the generator of the semigroup corresponds to the singularities of the Lax–Phillips S-matrix. In the case of discrete (complex) spectrum of the generator of the semigroup associated with resonances, the decay law is exactly exponential. We explain how this profound difference between the quantum Lax–Phillips theory and the description of unstable systems in the framework of the standard quantum theory emerges. The states corresponding to these resonances (eigenfunctions of the generator of the semigroup) lie in the Lax–Phillips Hilbert space, and therefore all physical properties of the resonant states can be computed. In the special case of a time-independent potential problem lifted trivially to the quantum Lax–Phillips theory, we show that the Lax–Phillips S-matrix is unitarily related to the S-matrix of standard scattering theory by a unitary transformation parametrized by the spectral variable σ of the Lax–Phillips theory. Analytic continuation in σ has some of the properties of a method developed some time ago for application to dilation analytic potentials. We work out an illustrative example of the theory using a Lee–Friedrichs model, which is generalized to a rank one potential in the Lax–Phillips Hilbert space.
The temporal behavior of quantum mechanical systems is reviewed. We mainly focus our attention on the time development of the so-called “survival” probability of those systems that are initially prepared in eigenstates of the unperturbed Hamiltonian, by assuming that the latter has a continuous spectrum. The exponential decay of the survival probability, familiar, for example, in radioactive decay phenomena, is representative of a purely probabilistic character of the system under consideration and is naturally expected to lead to a master equation. This behavior, however, can be found only at intermediate times, for deviations from it exist both at short and long times and can have significant consequences. After a short introduction to the long history of the research on the temporal behavior of such quantum mechanical systems, the short-time behavior and its controversial consequences when it is combined with von Neumann’s projection postulate in quantum measurement theory are critically overviewed from a dynamical point of view. We also discuss the so-called quantum Zeno effect from this standpoint. The behavior of the survival amplitude is then scrutinized by investigating the analytic properties of its Fourier and Laplace transforms. The analytic property that there is no singularity except a branch cut running along the real energy axis in the first Riemannian sheet is an important reflection of the time-reversal invariance of the dynamics governing the whole process. It is shown that the exponential behavior is due to the presence of a simple pole in the second Riemannian sheet, while the contribution of the branch point yields a power behavior for the amplitude. The exponential decay form is cancelled at short times and dominated at very long times by the branch-point contributions, which give a Gaussian behavior for the former and a power behavior for the latter. In order to realize the exponential law in quantum theory, it is essential to take into account a certain kind of macroscopic nature of the total system, since the exponential behavior is regarded as a manifestation of a complete loss of coherence of the quantum subsystem under consideration. In this respect, a few attempts at extracting the exponential decay form on the basis of quantum theory, aiming at the master equation, are briefly reviewed, including van Hove’s pioneering work and his well-known “λ2T” limit. In the attempt to further clarify the mechanism of the appearance of a purely probabilistic behavior without resort to any approximation, a solvable dynamical model is presented and extensively studied. The model describes an ultrarelativistic particle interacting with N two-level systems (called “spins”) and is shown to exhibit an exponential behavior at all times in the weak-coupling, macroscopic limit. Furthermore, it is shown that the model can even reproduce the short-time Gaussian behavior followed by the exponential law when an appropriate initial state is chosen. The analysis is exact and no approximation is involved. An interpretation for the change of the temporal behavior in quantum systems is drawn from the results obtained. Some implications for the quantum measurement problem are also discussed, in particular in connection with dissipation.
Based on the concepts of integrability and nonintegrability of a quantum system presented in a previous paper [Zhang, Feng, Yuan, and Wang, Phys. Rev. A 40, 438 (1989)], a realization of the dynamics in the quantum phase space is now presented. For a quantum system with dynamical group scrG and in one of its unitary irreducible-representation carrier spaces ${\mathit{gerh}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}$, the quantum phase space is a 2${\mathit{M}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}$-dimensional topological space, where ${\mathit{M}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}$ is the quantum-dynamical degrees of freedom. This quantum phase space is isomorphic to a coset space scrG/scrH via the unitary exponential mapping of the elementary excitation operator subspace of scrg (algebra of scrG), where scrH (\ensuremath{\subset}scrG) is the maximal stability subgroup of a fixed state in ${\mathit{gerh}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}}$. The phase-space representation of the system is realized on scrG/scrH, and its classical analogy can be obtained naturally. It is also shown that there is consistency between quantum and classical integrability. Finally, a general algorithm for seeking the manifestation of ``quantum chaos'' via the classical analogy is provided. Illustrations of this formulation in several important quantum systems are presented.
After a summary of the Rigged Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics and a brief statement of its advantages over von Neumann’s formulation, a mathematically correct definition of Gamow’s exponentially decaying vectors as generalized energy eigenvectors is suggested. It is shown that exponentially decaying vectors are obtained from the S-matrix poles in the lower half of the second sheet and exponentially growing vectors from the S-matrix poles in the upper half of the second sheet. Decaying ’’state’’ vectors are defined as functionals over half of the space of physical states and growing ’’state’’ vectors are defined as functionals over the other half. On functionals over these subspaces, the dynamical group of time development splits into two semigroups, one for t ≳ 0 and the other for t < 0. The generalized basis system connected with the spectrum of the Hamiltonian is transformed into a new basis system in which the exponentially decaying component of the density matrix is separated.