Sunday, September 22, 2019

Quantum mechanics - how can the energy be complex?


In section 134 of Vol. 3 (Quantum Mechanics), Landau and Lifshitz make the energy complex in order to describe a particle that can decay:


E=E012iΓ.


The propagator U(t)=exp(iHt) then makes the wavefunction die exponentially with time. But also, H is non-Hermitian.


My question: Do we have to modify the basic postulates of quantum mechanics (as described by Shankar, say, or the earlier sections of Landau & Lifshitz) to describe unstable particles?





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