 Contact interaction (quantum mechanics)

In a one-dimensional identical-particle model, a contact interaction has two-body potential $U(x,x^{\prime })=g\delta (x-x^{\prime })$, using the Dirac delta distribution. For bosons, its second quantization is the displayed normally ordered Hamiltonian operator. Projection onto orthonormal modes gives $H_{\mathrm{int}}=(g/2){\sum }_{ijkl}{I}_{ijkl}{a}_i^{†}{a}_j^{†}{a}_k{a}_l$, where $I_{ijkl}=\int {\phi }_i^{\ast }{\phi }_j^{\ast }{\phi }_k{\phi }_{l}dx$. The overlap integrals determine which mode-changing processes survive. A finite-mode model describes that projection; discarded modes can still matter to the full physical system.