We consider a quantum mechanical particle living on a graph and discuss the behaviour of its wavefunction at graph vertices. In addition to the standard (or-type) boundary conditions with continuous wavefunctions, we investigate two types of a singular coupling which are analogous to the interaction and its symmetrized version for a particle on a line. We show that these couplings can be used to model graph superlattices in which point junctions are replaced by complicated geometric scatterers. We also discuss the band spectra for rectangular lattices with the mentioned couplings. We show that they roughly correspond to their Kronig-Penney analogues: the lattices have bands whose widths are asymptotically bounded and do not approach zero, while the lattice gap widths are bounded. However, if the lattice-spacing ratio is an irrational number badly approximable by rationals, and the coupling constant is small

We consider a family of compact manifolds which shrinks with respect to an appropriate parameter to a graph. The main result is that the spectrum of the LaplaceBeltrami operator converges to the spectrum of the (differential) Laplacian on the graph with Kirchhoff boundary conditions at the vertices. On the other hand, if the shrinking at the vertex parts of the manifold is sufficiently slower comparing to that of the edge parts, the limiting spectrum corresponds to decoupled edges with Dirichlet boundary conditions at the endpoints. At the borderline between the two regimes we have a third possibility when the limiting spectrum can be described by a nontrivial coupling at the vertices.

Schrodinger operators with strongly singular interactions, typically supported by a set of Lebesgue measure zero, eg, by a nite or countable set of points, appeared in quantum mechanics from the very beginning~cf., eg,[35, 28]. Their use had essentially two motivations. First of all, they were expected to provide a reasonable description in the physical situations when the real interaction has a very small range comparing to the other characteristic lengths of the problem, for instance, to the wavelength of the scattered particles. On the other hand, the fact that the interaction support is small and outside it a free solution of the corresponding Schrodinger equation may be used often makes such models explicitly solvable. Until the beginning of the sixties, however, the occasional use of these point interactions remained purely formal. Only after the work of Berezin and Faddeev [11] did it become clear they can be

Every part of physics offers examples of non-stability phenomena, but probably nowhere are they so plentiful and worthy of study as in the realm of quantum theory. The present volume is devoted to this problem: we shall be concerned with open quantum systems, ie those that cannot be regarded as isolated from the rest of the physical universe. It is a natural framework in which non-stationary processes can be investigated. There are two main approaches to the treatment of open systems in quantum theory. In both the system under consideration is viewed as part of a larger system, assumed to be isolated in a reasonable approximation. They are differentiated mainly by the way in which the state Hilbert space of the open system is related to that of the isolated system-either by orthogonal sum or by tensor product. Though often applicable simultaneously to the same physical situation, these approaches are complementary in a sense and are adapted to different purposes. Here we shall be concerned with the first approach, which is suitable primarily for a description of decay processes, absorption, etc. The second approach is used mostly for the treatment of various relaxation phenomena. It is comparably better examined at present; in particular, the reader may consult a monograph by EB Davies.

The new edition of this book detailing the theory of linear-Hilbert space operators and their use in quantum physics contains two new chapters devoted to properties of quantum waveguides and quantum graphs. The bibliography contains 130 new items.