Past exam of the short options paper shared by Prelims and Parts A and B of the physics course of the University of Oxford / 2018 / S18 / 1 / d / iv / Solution

For a nonzero everywhere attractive weak potential, $\gamma <0$, the pole has $k=i\kappa$ with $\kappa =m|\gamma |/{\hslash }^2>0$. The exterior waves decay as $e^{-\kappa |x|}$, giving one shallow bound state to leading weak-coupling order:Its size ${\kappa }^{-1}$ is much larger than the potential range because $\kappa a=O(\lambda )\ll 1$. For an everywhere repulsive potential there is no negative-energy normalizable bound state: the kinetic and potential quadratic forms are both nonnegative. Its lower-half-plane pole is a virtual state, not a stable bound state. More complicated sign-changing potentials with a vanishing integral require higher-order analysis and are not covered by this simple leading result.