B\^ocher and Abstract Contractions of 2nd Order Quadratic Algebras

TL;DR

This paper classifies Bôcher contractions of quadratic algebras related to 2D superintegrable systems, providing a framework for understanding their geometric and physical significance, and connecting to hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials.

Contribution

It introduces a precise definition and classification of Bôcher contractions and develops an algorithm to find canonical forms of quadratic algebras.

Findings

Classified Bôcher contractions of quadratic algebras.

Developed an algorithm for canonical form computation.

Explicitly calculated canonical forms for systems on constant curvature and Darboux spaces.

Abstract

Quadratic algebras are generalizations of Lie algebras which include the symmetry algebras of 2nd order superintegrable systems in 2 dimensions as special cases. The superintegrable systems are exactly solvable physical systems in classical and quantum mechanics. Distinct superintegrable systems and their quadratic algebras can be related by geometric contractions, induced by B\^ocher contractions of the conformal Lie algebra ${\mathfrak{so}}(4,\mathbb {C})$ to itself. In this paper we give a precise definition of B\^ocher contractions and show how they can be classified. They subsume well known contractions of ${\mathfrak{e}}(2,\mathbb {C})$ and ${\mathfrak{so}}(3,\mathbb {C})$ and have important physical and geometric meanings, such as the derivation of the Askey scheme for obtaining all hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials as limits of Racah/Wilson polynomials. We also classify abstract nondegenerate quadratic algebras in terms of an invariant that we call a canonical form. We describe an algorithm for finding the canonical form of such algebras. We calculate explicitly all canonical forms arising from quadratic algebras of 2D nondegenerate superintegrable systems on constant curvature spaces and Darboux spaces. We further discuss contraction of quadratic algebras, focusing on those coming from superintegrable systems.