The Inverse-Cube Central Force Field in Quantum Mechanics

The problem of the motion of a particle in an inverse-cube central force field is fully treated by quantum mechanics and the results compared with the classical theory. Taking the effective radial potential energy as S{r^2}, although the solutions for negative energy for 0-{h^2}32{^2} satisfy the usual boundary conditions, they can not be admitted because the Hamiltonian is not Hermitian in these solutions. This corresponds to taking (l+1{2) }^2 in place of l (l+1) as the analogue of the square of the classical angular momentum. If we do this, we get a complete analogy between the classical and quantum mechanically allowed solutions, with no quantization. The solutions involve Bessel functions of both real and imaginary orders with both real and imaginary arguments.