Fano-Feshbach resonances in two-channel scattering around exceptional points

It is well known that in open quantum systems resonances can coalesce at an exceptional point, where both the energies {\em and} the wave functions coincide. In contrast to the usual behaviour of the scattering amplitude at one resonance, the coalescence of two resonances invokes a pole of second order in the Green's function, in addition to the usual first order pole. We show that the interference due to the two pole terms of different order gives rise to patterns in the scattering cross section which closely resemble Fano-Feshbach resonances. We demonstrate this by extending previous work on the analogy of Fano-Feshbach resonances to classical resonances in a system of two driven coupled damped harmonic oscillators.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Phys.

Uniform semiclassical approximations on a topologically non-trivial configuration space: The hydrogen atom in an electric field

Semiclassical periodic-orbit theory and closed-orbit theory represent a quantum spectrum as a superposition of contributions from individual classical orbits. Close to a bifurcation, these contributions diverge and have to be replaced with a uniform approximation. Its construction requires a normal form that provides a local description of the bifurcation scenario. Usually, the normal form is constructed in flat space. We present an example taken from the hydrogen atom in an electric field where the normal form must be chosen to be defined on a sphere instead of a Euclidean plane. In the example, the necessity to base the normal form on a topologically non-trivial configuration space reveals a subtle interplay between local and global aspects of the phase space structure. We show that a uniform approximation for a bifurcation scenario with non-trivial topology can be constructed using the established uniformization techniques. Semiclassical photo-absorption spectra of the hydrogen atom in an electric field are significantly improved when based on the extended uniform approximations