Interlace properties for the real and imaginary parts of the wave functions of complex-valued potentials with real spectrum

Abstract

Some general properties of the wave functions of complex-valued potentials with real spectrum are studied. The main results are presented in a series of lemmas, corollaries and theorems that are satisfied by the zeros of the real and imaginary parts of the wave functions on the real line. In particular, it is shown that such zeros interlace so that the corresponding probability densities ρ(x) are never null. We find that the profile of the imaginary part VI(x) of a given complex-valued potential determines the number and distribution of the maxima and minima of the related probability densities. Our conjecture is that VI(x) must be continuous in R, and that its integral over all the real line must be equal to zero in order to get control on the distribution of the maxima and minima of ρ(x). The applicability of these results is shown by solving the eigenvalue equation of different complex potentials, these last being either PT-symmetric or not invariant under the PT-transformation.