English

Breaking so(4) symmetry without degeneracy lift

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2015-02-09 v2

Abstract

We argue that in the quantum motion of a scalar particle of mass "m" on S^3_R perturbed by the trigonometric Scarf potential (Scarf I) with one internal quantized dimensionless parameter, \ell, the 3D orbital angular momentum, and another, an external scale introducing continuous parameter, B, a loss of the geometric hyper-spherical so(4) symmetry of the free motion can occur that leaves intact the unperturbed {\mathcal N}^2-fold degeneracy patterns, with {\mathcal N}=(\ell +n+1) and n denoting the nodes number of the wave function. Our point is that although the number of degenerate states for any {\mathcal N} matches dimensionality of an irreducible so(4) representation space, the corresponding set of wave functions do not transform irreducibly under any so(4). Indeed, in expanding the Scarf I wave functions in the basis of properly identified so(4) representation functions, we find power series in the perturbation parameter, B, where 4D angular momenta K\in [\ell , {\mathcal N}-1] contribute up to the order \left(\frac{2mR^2B}{\hbar^2}\right)^{{\mathcal N}-1-K}. In this fashion, we work out an explicit example on a symmetry breakdown by external scales that retains the degeneracy. The scheme extends to so(d+2) for any d.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1305.1281,
  title  = {Breaking so(4) symmetry without degeneracy lift},
  author = {A. Pallares-Rivera and F. de J. Rosales-Aldape and M. Kirchbach},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1305.1281},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

Prepared for the proceedings of the conference "Lie Theory and Its Applications In Physics", June 17-23, 2013, Varna, Bulgaria