Tools for Verifying Classical and Quantum Superintegrability

• Main Authors: Ernest G. Kalnins, Jonathan M. Kress, Willard Miller Jr.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Science of Ukraine 2010-08-01
• Series: Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications
• Subjects: superintegrability; hidden algebras; quadratic algebras
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3842/SIGMA.2010.066

Recently many new classes of integrable systems in n dimensions occurring in classical and quantum mechanics have been shown to admit a functionally independent set of 2n−1 symmetries polynomial in the canonical momenta, so that they are in fact superintegrable. These newly discovered systems are all separable in some coordinate system and, typically, they depend on one or more parameters in such a way that the system is superintegrable exactly when some of the parameters are rational numbers. Most of the constructions to date are for n=2 but cases where n>2 are multiplying rapidly. In this article we organize a large class of such systems, many new, and emphasize the underlying mechanisms which enable this phenomena to occur and to prove superintegrability. In addition to proofs of classical superintegrability we show that the 2D caged anisotropic oscillator and a Stäckel transformed version on the 2-sheet hyperboloid are quantum superintegrable for all rational relative frequencies, and that a deformed 2D Kepler-Coulomb system is quantum superintegrable for all rational values of a parameter k in the potential.