Time fractional Schrödinger equation: Fox's H-functions and the effective potential

Abstract

After introducing the formalism of the general space and time fractional Schrödinger equation, we concentrate on the time fractional Schrödinger equation and present new results via the elegant language of Fox's H-functions. We show that the general time dependent part of the wave function for the separable solutions of the time-fractional Schrödinger equation is the Mittag-Leffler function with an imaginary argument by two different methods. After separating the Mittag-Leffler function into its real and imaginary parts, in contrast to existing works, we show that the total probability is ⩽1 and decays with time. Introducing the effective potential approach, we also write the Mittag-Leffler function with an imaginary argument as the product of its purely decaying and purely oscillating parts. In the light of these, we reconsider the simple box problem.