Coordinate representation for non-Hermitian position and momentum operators

Abstract

In this paper, we undertake an analysis of the eigenstates of two non-self-adjoint operators q ^ and p ^ similar, in a suitable sense, to the self-adjoint position and momentum operators q ^ 0 and p ^ 0 usually adopted in ordinary quantum mechanics. In particular, we discuss conditions for these eigenstates to be biorthogonal distributions , and we discuss a few of their properties. We illustrate our results with two examples, one in which the similarity map between the self-adjoint and the non-self-adjoint is bounded, with bounded inverse, and the other in which this is not true. We also briefly propose an alternative strategy to deal with q ^ and p ^ , based on the so-called quasi *-algebras .