Semiclassical tunneling for some 1D Schr\"odinger operators with complex-valued potentials

Abstract

We consider the non-selfadjoint, semiclassical Schr\"odinger operator $\mathscr{L}(h) := -h^2\partial_x^2+e^{i\alpha}V$, where $\alpha \in (-\pi,\pi)$ and $V: \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}_+$ is even and vanishes at exactly two (symmetric) non-degenerate minima. We establish a semiclassical tunneling result: the spectrum of $\mathscr{L}(h)$ near the origin is given by a sequence of algebraically simple eigenvalues which come in exponentially close pairs (within a $\mathscr{O}(e^{-S/h})$ distance where $S > 0$ is explicit), each pair being separated from the others by a distance $\mathscr{O}(h)$. A one-term estimate of the gap between the two smallest eigenvalues in magnitude is derived; it reveals that, when $\alpha \neq 0$, they quickly rotate around each other as $h$ goes to $0$.