Symmetries of the hydrogen atom and algebraic families

TL;DR

This paper explores the hidden symmetries of the two-dimensional hydrogen atom's Schrödinger equation through algebraic families of Harish-Chandra pairs, revealing continuous symmetry variations and algebraic spectrum recovery methods.

Contribution

It introduces an algebraic family framework for hidden symmetries in quantum systems, applying Harish-Chandra modules and Jantzen filtrations to analyze the hydrogen atom.

Findings

Hidden symmetries interpolate between SO(3), SO(2,1), and Euclidean groups.

Solutions form an algebraic family of Harish-Chandra modules.

Spectrum can be algebraically recovered using Jantzen filtration techniques.

Abstract

We show how the Schr\"{o}dinger equation for the hydrogen atom in two dimensions gives rise to an algebraic family of Harish-Chandra pairs that codifies hidden symmetries. The hidden symmetries vary continuously between $SO(3)$, $SO(2,1)$ and the Euclidean group $O(2)\ltimes \mathbb{R}^2$. We show that solutions of the Schr\"{o}dinger equation may be organized into an algebraic family of Harish-Chandra modules. Furthermore, we use Jantzen filtration techniques to algebraically recover the spectrum of the Schr\"{o}dinger operator. This is a first application to physics of the algebraic families of Harish-Chandra pairs and modules developed in the work of Bernstein et al. [Int. Math. Res. Notices, rny147 (2018); rny146 (2018)].