On the equivalence of the Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model and two non-Hermitian Harmonic Oscillators

Abstract

A system of two independent Bosonic Harmonic Oscillators is converted into the respective fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator model. The conversion procedure displays transparently how the quantization of the fourth-order derivative Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator has to be performed in order not to suffer from the divergence problems of the vacuum state and path integrals as conjectured most recently by P. D. Mannheim in his article ``Determining the normalization of the quantum field theory vacuum, with implications for quantum gravity" [arXiv:2301.13029 [hep-th]]. In order to make the case we present the construction of the path integral, generating functionals and vacuum persistence amplitudes for PT-symmetry completed systems in Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory and discuss some implications to Quantum Field Theory and Particle Physics.