We study the decay of a prepared state into non-flat continuum. We find that the survival probability P(t) might exhibit either stretched-exponential or power-law decay, depending on non-universal features of the model. Still there is a universal characteristic time t₀ that does not depend on the functional form.

It is only for a flat continuum that we get a robust exponential decay that is insensitive to the nature of the intra-continuum couplings.

The analysis highlights the co-existence of perturbative and non-perturbative features in the local density of states, and the non-linear dependence of 1/t₀ on the strength of the coupling.

[1] Quantum decay into a non-flat continuum, J. Aisenberg, I. Sela, T. Kottos, D. Cohen and A. Elgart (arXiv 2009).