Bound States in the Continuum from Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

Starting from a potential with a continuum of energy eigenstates, we show how the methods of supersymmetric quantum mechanics can be used to generate families of potentials with bound states in the continuum [BICs]. We also find the corresponding wave functions. Our method preserves the spectrum of the original potential except it adds these discrete BICs at selected energies. Specifically, we compute and graph potentials which have bound states in the continuum starting from a null potential representing a free particle and from both the attractive and the repulsive Coulomb potentials.