Hermitian hamiltonians and imaginary eigenvalues beyond the Hilbert space

Abstract

In a quantum system initially in the $n$-th eigenstate, an adiabatic evolution of the Hamiltonian ensures that the system remains in the corresponding instantaneous eigenstate while acquiring a phase factor. This phase has two components: one resulting from standard time evolution and another associated with the dependence of the eigenstate on the varying Hamiltonian, known as the Berry phase. In this work, we explore the concept of geometric amplitudes in the context of a Hermitian Hamiltonian. We introduce the notion of geometric amplitude and provide a novel derivation of this concept. Our study reveals that a system undergoing cyclic evolution under adiabatic conditions acquires an additional amplitude factor of purely geometric origin. To illustrate this idea, we apply it to a concrete case: a generalized inverted harmonic oscillator. Although a pseudo-inner product can be introduced to make resonance states formally normalizable, this procedure relies on a non-unitary metric operator and defines a modified Hilbert space; it does not restore normalizability nor self-adjointness in the standard $L^2(R)$ framework.