Entanglement of boundary conditions giving rise to spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum mechanics

Abstract

We study spontaneous symmetry breaking in one dimensional quantum mechanical problems in terms of two-point boundary problems which lead to singular potentials containing Dirac delta functions and its derivatives. We search for broken-symmetry bound states. For a particular entanglement of boundary conditions, we show the existence of a ground state, giving rise to a spontaneous symmetry breaking, stable under the phenomenon of decoherence generated from external fluctuations. We discuss the model in the context of the "chiral" broken-symmetry states of molecules like $NH_3$.