Examples of PT Phase Transition : QM to QFT

Abstract

Parity Time Reversal (PT) phase transition is a typical characteristic of most of the PT symmetric non-Hermitian (NH) systems. Depending on the theory, a particular system and spacetime dimensionality PT phase transition has various interesting features. In this article we review some of our works on PT phase transitions in quantum mechanics (QM) as well as in Quantum Field theory (QFT). We demonstrate typical characteristics of PT phase transition with the help of several analytically solved examples. In one dimensional QM, we consider examples with exactly as well as quasi exactly solvable (QES) models to capture essential features of PT phase transition. The discrete symmetries have rich structures in higher dimensions which are used to explore the PT phase transition in higher dimensional systems. We consider anisotropic SHOs in two and three dimensions to realize some connection between the symmetry of original hermitian Hamiltonian and the unbroken phase of the NH system. We consider the 2+1 dimensional massless Dirac particle in the external magnetic field with PT symmetric non-Hermitian spin-orbit interaction in the background of the Dirac oscillator potential to show the PT phase transition in a relativistic system. A small mass gap, consistent with the other approaches and experimental observations is generated only in the unbroken phase of the system. Finally we develop the NH formulation in an SU(N) gauge field theoretic model by using the natural but unconventional Hermiticity properties of the ghost fields. Deconfinement to confinement phase transition has been realized as PT phase transition in such a non-hermitian model.