Extended Kepler-Coulomb quantum superintegrable systems in 3 dimensions

TL;DR

This paper introduces an infinite class of quantum superintegrable systems extending the Kepler-Coulomb potential in 3D, demonstrating their high-order superintegrability and algebraic symmetry structures.

Contribution

It constructs a broad family of extended Kepler-Coulomb systems with arbitrarily high order superintegrability and analyzes their symmetry algebra closure properties.

Findings

Systems are superintegrable of arbitrarily high order.

Symmetry algebras close algebraically, not always polynomially.

Existence of raising and lowering operators aids in symmetry construction.

Abstract

The quantum Kepler-Coulomb system in 3 dimensions is well known to be 2nd order superintegrable, with a symmetry algebra that closes polynomially under commutators. This polynomial closure is also typical for 2nd order superintegrable systems in 2D and for 2nd order systems in 3D with nondegenerate (4-parameter) potentials. However the degenerate 3-parameter potential for the 3D Kepler-Coulomb system (also 2nd order superintegrable) is an exception, as its symmetry algebra doesn't close polynomially. The 3D 4-parameter potential for the extended Kepler-Coulomb system is not even 2nd order superintegrable, but Verrier and Evans (2008) showed it was 4th order superintegrable, and Tanoudis and Daskaloyannis (2011) showed that, if a 2nd 4th order symmetry is added to the generators, the symmetry algebra closes polynomially. Here, based on the Tremblay, Turbiner and Winternitz construction, we consider an infinite class of quantum extended Kepler-Coulomb 3 and 4-parameter systems indexed by a pair of rational numbers (k_1,k_2) and reducing to the usual systems when k_1=k_2=1. We show these systems to be superintegrable of arbitrarily high order and determine the structure of their symmetry algebras. We demonstrate that the symmetry algebras close algebraically; only for systems admitting extra discrete symmetries is polynomial closure achieved. Underlying the structure theory is the existence of raising and lowering operators, not themselves symmetry operators or even defined independent of basis, that can be employed to construct the symmetry operators and their structure relations.