Unified description of a class of models for Bose-Einstein correlations in multiple particle production processes

Numerous models have been proposed to describe the Bose-Einstein correlations in multiple particle production processes. In the present paper we describe a generalization, which includes many previous models as special cases and, therefore, can be useful for work of comparison. We apply the powerful methods of eigenfunction expansions and generating functionals, which often make the calculations much shorter than in the original papers.