ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the time-independent Schrödinger equation. The introduction of complex ‘Hamiltonians’ is essential for treating resonances that are inherently different from genuine (physical) bound states. True square-integrable bound-state eigenvectors are associated with discrete negative eigenenergies and Hermitean Hamiltonians. Resonant states are also square-integrable, but they are linked to complex energies with positive real parts that belong to a continuum. The concept of the absorbing boundary condition comes to rescue the situation via the introduction of complex ‘Hamiltonians’ with normalizable scattering wavefunctions as proper physical states. A method which can provide an adequate spectral representation of the total Green operator or resolvent G^(ω) would be one of the key inputs into an invaluable practical quantum-mechanical theory for scattering (E = 0) and spectroscopy (E < 0).
