For singular potentials in quantum mechanics it can happen that the Schrödinger operator is not esssentially self-adjoint on a natural domain, i.e., each self-adjoint extension is a candidate for the right physical Hamiltonian. Traditional way to single out this Hamiltonian is the removing cut-offs for regularizing potential. Connecting regularization and extension theory we develop an abstract operator method to treat the problem of the right Hamiltonian. We show that, using the notion of the maximal (with respect to the perturbation) Friedrichs extension of unperturbed operator, one can classify the above problem as wellposed or ill-posed depending on intersection of the quadratic form domain of perturbation and deficiency subspace corresponding to restriction of unperturbed operator to stability domain. If this intersection is trivial, then the right Hamiltonian is unique: it coincides with the form sum of perturbation and the Friedrich extension of the unperturbed operator restricted to the stability domain. Otherwise it is not unique: the family of “right Hamiltonians” can be described in terms of symmetric extensions reducing the ill-posed problem to the well-posed problem.
Vacuum Polarization in a Zero-Width Potential: Self-Adjoint Extension
