Comparing Hermitian and Non-Hermitian Quantum Electrodynamics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We would like to thank Reviewer 1 for their consideration of our manuscript and for their supportive comments.  The reviewer’s suggestions for improving the introduction of our manuscript have been taken into account in this revised version, and we have made changes to the introduction accordingly.  In particular, a paragraph has been added that discusses the general theoretical aspects of introducing a new inner product to a field theory and the consequences of this change on the field observables.  This has been connected to other work that invokes a new inner product specifically in QED.  This discussion should prepare the reader for section 3 of the manuscript. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Non-Hermitian quantum physics is an important part of the quantum optics and condensed matter communities. This manuscript identifies a non-standard inner product that implies bosonic commutator relations for local electric and magnetic field observables and leads to a natural local biorthogonal description of the quantized electromagnetic field. Moreover, when comparing this description with an alternative local Hermitian description, the authors find that there is an equivalence between the two approaches. Careful consideration needs to be given to the physical interpretation of the different descriptions. Indeed, I found the idea is original and interesting. Its theoretical analysis, including the principle, calculation and etc, is in detail and looks sound. The proposed scheme has several advantages beyond previous works. So, it makes a useful contribution to the subject. Thus, I can recommend this manuscript for publication in Symmetry.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for their supportive comments and for recommending the publication of our manuscript.