The Spectrum of the Cubic Oscillator

Abstract

We prove the simplicity and analyticity of the eigenvalues of the cubic oscillator Hamiltonian,

$$\begin{array}{ll}H(\beta)=-\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+x^2+i\sqrt{\beta}x^3\end{array}$$

, for β in the cut plane ${\mathcal{C}_c:=\mathcal{C}\backslash \mathcal{R}_-}$. Moreover, we prove that the spectrum consists of the perturbative eigenvalues {E _n (β)} _{n ≥ 0} labeled by the constant number n of nodes of the corresponding eigenfunctions. In addition, for all ${\beta \in \mathcal{C}_c, E_n(\beta)}$ can be computed as the Stieltjes-Padé sum of its perturbation series at β = 0. This also gives an alternative proof of the fact that the spectrum of H(β) is real when β is a positive number. This way, the main results on the repulsive PT-symmetric and on the attractive quartic oscillators are extended to the cubic case.