Generating Converging Eigenenergy Bounds for the Discrete States of the -ix^3 Non-Hermitian Potential

Abstract

Recent investigations by Bender and Boettcher (Phys. Rev. Lett 80, 5243 (1998)) and Mezincescu (J. Phys. A. 33, 4911 (2000)) have argued that the discrete spectrum of the non-hermitian potential $V(x) = -ix^3$ should be real. We give further evidence for this through a novel formulation which transforms the general one dimensional Schrodinger equation (with complex potential) into a fourth order linear differential equation for $|Ψ(x)|^2$. This permits the application of the Eigenvalue Moment Method, developed by Handy, Bessis, and coworkers (Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 931 (1985);60, 253 (1988a,b)), yielding rapidly converging lower and upper bounds to the low lying discrete state energies. We adapt this formalism to the pure imaginary cubic potential, generating tight bounds for the first five discrete state energy levels.