On the foundation of a variational principle for decaying systems

Taking into account the circumstances that the decay of an unstable microscopic system into two fragments is established by the counting of one of the decay products in a detector, the observed exponential decay law then asserts only knowledge of the spatiotemporal behaviour of the probability density (and therewith knowledge of the decaying state) at a large finite distance from the site of decay. We therefore formulate a variational principle, of which stationary functions show this decay behaviour. In addition to the resonant wave functions there are also solutions of the variational principle, which decrease exponentially with increasing distance, i.e., functions which could be used to describe the bound states. As the time-dependent treatment shows, the decaying states cannot occur in isolation in a scattering process. The mathematical characterisation of the decaying states via a variational principle is incorporated in a theory of open physical systems. In contradiction to the variational principle of Schroedinger our principle does not provide complete knowledge of the quantum states, but this is not needed in order to describe the decay. (orig.)