Paper detail

Resonances and PT symmetry in quantum curves

In the correspondence between spectral problems and topological strings, it is natural to consider complex values for the string theory moduli. In the spectral theory side, this corresponds to non-Hermitian quantum curves with complex spectra and resonances, and in some cases, to PT-symmetric spectral problems. The correspondence leads to precise predictions about the spectral properties of these non-Hermitian operators. In this paper we develop techniques to compute the complex spectra of these quantum curves, providing in this way precision tests of these predictions. In addition, we analyze quantum Seiberg-Witten curves with PT symmetry, which provide interesting and exactly solvable examples of spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking.