Absorbing boundary condition as limiting case of imaginary potentials

Abstract: Imaginary potentials such as

V (x) = - i v 1_{O} m e g a (x)

(with

v > 0

a constant,

O m e g a

a subset of 3-space, and

1_{O} m e g a

its characteristic function) have been used in quantum mechanics as models of a detector. They represent the effect of a "soft" detector that takes a while to notice a particle in the detector volume

O m e g a

. In order to model a "hard" detector (i.e., one that registers a particle as soon as it enters

O m e g a

), one may think of taking the limit

v o i n f t y

of increasing detector strength

v

. However, as pointed out by Allcock, in this limit the particle never enters

O m e g a

; its wave function gets reflected at the boundary

p a r t i a l O m e g a

of

O m e g a

in the same way as by a Dirichlet boundary condition on

p a r t i a l O m e g a

. This phenomenon, a cousin of the "quantum Zeno effect," might suggest that a hard detector is mathematically impossible. Nevertheless, a mathematical description of a hard detector has recently been put forward in the form of the "absorbing boundary rule" involving an absorbing boundary condition on the detecting surface

p a r t i a l O m e g a

. We show here that in a suitable (non-obvious) limit, the imaginary potential

V

yields a non-trivial distribution of detection time and place in agreement with the absorbing boundary rule. That is, a hard detector can be obtained as a limit, but it is a different limit than Allcock considered.

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