Feshbach Resonances: The Branching of Quantum Mechanics into Hermitian and Non-Hermitian Formalisms

Abstract

As has been shown long time ago by Feshbach, the exact energy spectrum of the full problem can be obtained by solving two different self-energy problems. In spite of the fact that the two effective Hamiltonians are derived in very similar ways in one case, the exact energy spectrum of the full problem can be either real or complex (depending on the boundary conditions), whereas the exact energy spectrum associated with the second effective Hamiltonian has to be complex (excluding bound states in the continuum). The focus of this paper is on the fact that in both cases the complex eigenvalues result from the same requirement of an out-going boundary condition. The branching of quantum mechanics to standard (Hermitian) formalism and non-Hermitian formalism is associated with the decision to express the exact energy spectrum with one of the two possible self-consistent like problems where the use of the Green operator imposes an outgoing boundary condition on the solutions of the time-independent Schrodinger equation. Our analysis is made for the case where an ABC molecule has sufficient energy to dissociate to A + BC but not to A + B + C and not to AB + C or to AC + B.