PT-Symmetric Cubic Anharmonic Oscillator as a Physical Model

We perform a perturbative calculation of the physical observables, in particular pseudo-Hermitian position and momentum operators, the equivalent Hermitian Hamiltonian operator, and the classical Hamiltonian for the PT-symmetric cubic anharmonic oscillator, $H=p^1/(2m)+μ^2x^2/2+iεx^3$. Ignoring terms of order $ε^4$ and higher, we show that this system describes an ordinary quartic anharmonic oscillator with a position-dependent mass and real and positive coupling constants. This observation elucidates the classical origin of the reality and positivity of the energy spectrum. We also discuss the quantum-classical correspondence for this PT-symmetric system, compute the associated conserved probability density, and comment on the issue of factor-ordering in the pseudo-Hermitian canonical quantization of the underlying classical system.

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