Continuity of Bound and Unbound States in a Fermi Gas: A Soluble Example

Considering a gas of independent fermions in the presence of an attractive localized potential, one can show that the properties of the system as a whole are smooth (analytic) functions of the strength parameter of the potential, even at those values where new single-particle bound states appear. Thus for the system as a whole, the transition from ``unbound'' to ``bound'' states is continuous and the concept of a bound state cannot be made precise. This is illustrated here for a simple mathematically soluble model—noninteracting spinless fermions moving in the presence of a delta-function potential in one dimension. Some related physical ideas are also presented.