Inverse problem in energy-dependent potentials using semiclassical methods

Abstract

Wave equations with energy-dependent potentials appear in many areas of physics, ranging from nuclear physics to black hole perturbation theory. In this work, we use the semiclassical Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) method to first revisit the computation of bound states of potential wells and reflection/transmission coefficients in terms of the Bohr-Sommerfeld rule and the Gamow formula. We then discuss the inverse problem, in which the latter observables are used as a starting point to reconstruct the properties of the potentials. By extending known inversion techniques to energy-dependent potentials, we demonstrate that so-called width-equivalent or WKB-equivalent potentials are not isospectral anymore. Instead, we explicitly demonstrate that constructing quasi-isospectral potentials with the inverse techniques is still possible. Those reconstructed, energy-independent potentials share key properties with the width-equivalent potentials. We report that including energy-dependent terms allows for a rich phenomenology, particularly for the energy-independent equivalent potentials. Published by the American Physical Society 2024