Universality in one-dimensional scattering with general dispersion relations

Many synthetic quantum systems allow particles to have dispersion relations that are neither linear nor quadratic functions. Here, we explore single-particle scattering in one dimension when the dispersion relation is(k) =±|d|km, where m≥2 is an integer. For a large class of scattering problems, we rigorously prove that when there are no half bound states at zero energy, the S-matrix evaluated at an energy E→ 0 converges to a universal limit that is only dependent on m. We study impurity scattering problems in which a single-particle in a one-dimensional waveguide scatters off of an inhomogeneous, discrete set of sites locally coupled to the waveguide. We also give a generalization of a key result in quantum scattering theory known as Levinson's theorem—which relates the scattering phases to the number of bound states—to impurity scattering for these more general dispersion relations.