This paper introduces a novel method to extend the Helmholtz Decomposition to n-dimensional sufficiently smooth and fast decaying vector fields. The rotation is described by a superposition of n(n-1)/2 rotations within the coordinate planes. The source potential and the rotation potential are obtained by convolving the source and rotation densities with the fundamental solutions of the Laplace equation. The rotation-free gradient of the source potential and the divergence-free rotation of the rotation potential sum to the original vector field. The approach relies on partial derivatives and Newton integrals and allows for a simple application of this standard method to high-dimensional vector fields, without using concepts from differential geometry and tensor calculus.
Several local elliptic coordinates are used to build a new polyelliptic coordinate system which is orthogonal and admits the separation of variables. Such coordinate systems can give the exact solutions of some unsolved problems in quantum mechanics and diffraction theory.
We present in this article all Hamiltonian systems in E(2) that are separable in cartesian coordinates and that admit a third-order integral, both in quantum and in classical mechanics. Many of these superintegrable systems are new, and it is seen that there exists a relation between quantum superintegrable potentials, invariant solutions of the Korteweg-De Vries equation and the Painlevé transcendents.
We continue the study of superintegrable systems of Thompson's type separable in Cartesian coordinates. An additional integral of motion for these systems is the polynomial in momenta of N-th order which is a linear function of angle variables and the polynomial in action variables. Existence of such superintegrable systems is naturally related to the famous Chebyshev theorem on binomial differentials.
The geometric theory of additive separation of variables is applied to the search for multiplicative separated solutions of the bi-Helmholtz equation. It is shown that the equation does not admit regular separation in any coordinate system in any pseudo-Riemannian space. The equation is studied in the four coordinate systems in the Euclidean plane where the Helmholtz equation and hence the bi-Helmholtz equation is separable. It is shown that the bi-Helmoltz equation admits non-trivial non-regular separation in both Cartesian and polar coordinates, while it possesses only trivial separability i…
We consider superintegrability in classical mechanics in the presence of magnetic fields. We focus on three-dimensional systems which are separable in Cartesian coordinates. We construct all possible minimally and maximally superintegrable systems in this class with additional integrals quadratic in the momenta. Together with the results of our previous paper [J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 50 (2017), 245202, 24 pages], where one of the additional integrals was by assumption linear, we conclude the classification of three-dimensional quadratically minimally and maximally superintegrable systems sepa…
A study is presented of two-dimensional superintegrable systems separating in Cartesian coordinates and allowing an integral of motion that is a fourth order polynomial in the momenta. All quantum mechanical potentials that do not satisfy any linear differential equation are found. They do however satisfy nonlinear ODEs. We show that these equations always have the Painlevé property and integrate them in terms of known Painlevé transcendents or elliptic functions.
The path-integral calculation for the free energy of a spin-1/2 Dirac-fermion gas is performed in spherical polar coordinates for a flat spacetime geometry. Its equivalence with the Cartesian-coordinate representation is explicitly established. This evaluation involves a relevant limiting case of the fermionic path integral in a Schwarzschild background, whose near-horizon limit has been shown to be related to black hole thermodynamics.
A new method is presented for Fourier decomposition of the Helmholtz Green Function in cylindrical coordinates, which is equivalent to obtaining the solution of the Helmholtz equation for a general ring source. The Fourier coefficients of the Helmholtz Green function are split into their half advanced+half retarded and half advanced-half retarded components. Closed form solutions are given for these components in terms of a Horn function and a Kampe de Feriet function, respectively. The systems of partial differential equations associated with these two-dimensional hypergeometric functions are…
P.A.M. Dirac had stated that the Cartesian coordinates are uniquely suited for expressing the canonical commutation relations in a simple form. By contrast, expressing these commutation relations in any other coordinate system is more complicated and less obvious. The question that we address in this work, is the reason why this is true. We claim that this unique role of the Cartesian coordinates is a result of the existence and uniqueness of the Hofer metric on the space of canonical transformations of the phase space of the system getting quantized.
We consider a two dimensional quantum Hamiltonian separable in Cartesian coordinates and allowing a fifth-order integral of motion. We impose the superintegrablity condition and find all doubly exotic superintegrable potentials (i.e potentials V (x, y) = V_1(x)+V_2(y) where neither V_1(x) nor V_2(y) satisfy a linear ODE) allowing the existence of such an integral. All of these potentials are found to have the Painlevé property. Most of them are expressed in terms of known Painlevé transcendents or elliptic functions but some may represent new higher order Painlevé transcendents.
Heisenberg-type higher order symmetries are studied for both classical and quantum mechanical systems separable in cartesian coordinates. A few particular cases of this type of superintegrable systems were already considered in the literature, but here they are characterized in full generality together with their integrability properties. Some of these systems are defined only in a region of $\mathbb R^n$, and in general they do not include bounded solutions. The quantum symmetries and potentials are shown to reduce to their superintegrable classical analogs in the $\hbar \to0$ limit.
The Helmholtz decomposition splits a sufficiently smooth vector field into a gradient field and a divergence-free rotation field. Existing decomposition methods impose constraints on the behavior of vector fields at infinity and require solving convolution integrals over the entire coordinate space. To allow a Helmholtz decomposition in $\mathbb{R}^n$, we replace the vector potential in $\mathbb{R}^3$ by the rotation potential, an n-dimensional, antisymmetric matrix-valued map describing $n(n-1)/2$ rotations within the coordinate planes. We provide three methods to derive the Helmholtz decompo…
Superintegrable classical Hamiltonian systems in two-dimensional Euclidean space $E_2$ are explored. The study is restricted to Hamiltonians allowing separation of variables $V(x,y)=V_1(x)+V_2(y)$ in Cartesian coordinates. In particular, the Hamiltonian $\mathcal H$ admits a polynomial integral of order $N>2$. Only doubly exotic potentials are considered. These are potentials where none of their separated parts obey any linear ordinary differential equation. An improved procedure to calculate these higher-order superintegrable systems is described in detail. The two basic building blocks of th…
A study is presented of superintegrable quantum systems in two-dimensional Euclidean space $E_2$ allowing the separation of variables in Cartesian coordinates. In addition to the Hamiltonian $H$ and the second order integral of motion $X$, responsible for the separation of variables, they allow a third integral that is a polynomial of order $N\, (N\geq3)$ in the components $p_1, p_2$ of the linear momentum. We focus on doubly exotic potentials, i.e. potentials $V(x, y) = V_1(x) + V_2(y)$ where neither $V_1(x)$ nor $V_2(y)$ satisfy any linear ordinary differential equation. We present two new i…
Olver and Rosenau studied group-invariant solutions of (generally nonlinear) partial differential equations through the imposition of a side condition. We apply a similar idea to the special case of finite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems, namely Hamilton-Jacobi, Helmholtz and time-independent Schrödinger equations with potential on $N$-dimensional Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, but with a linear side condition, where more structure is available. We show that the requirement of $N-1$ commuting second-order symmetry operators, modulo a second-order linear side condition corresponds …
Canonical quantization entails using Cartesian coordinates, and Cartesian coordinates exist only in flat spaces. This situation can either be questioned or accepted. In this paper we offer a brief and introductory overview of how a flat phase space metric can be incorporated into a covariant, coordinate-free quantization procedure involving a continuous-time (Wiener measure) regularization of traditional phase space path integrals. Additionally we show how such procedures can be extended to incorporate systems with constraints and illustrate that extension for special systems.
In this paper we construct integrable three-dimensional quantum-mechanical systems with magnetic fields, admitting pairs of commuting second-order integrals of motion. The case of Cartesian coordinates is considered. Most of the systems obtained are new and not related to the separation of variables in the corresponding Schrödinger equation.
This article simply presents several coordinate systems for 2 and 3-dimensional hyperbolic spaces, describing the general solutions of Helmholtz equation in each one of these systems.
A method of constructing of Darboux coordinates on a space that is a symplectic reduction with respect to a diagonal action of $GL(m})$ on a Cartesian product of $N$ orbits of coadjoint representation of $GL(m)$ is presented. The method gives an explicit symplectic birational isomorphism between the reduced space on the one hand and a Cartesian product of $N-3$ coadjoint orbits of dimension $m(m-1)$ on an orbit of dimension $(m-1)(m-2)$ on the other hand. In a generic case of the diagonalizable matrices it gives just the isomorphism that is birational and symplectic between some open, in a Zar…
Despite being studied for over a century, the use of quadrupoles have been limited to Cartesian coordinates in flat spacetime due to the incorrect transformation rules used to define them. Here the correct transformation rules are derived, which are particularly unusual as they involve second derivatives of the coordinate transformation and an integral. Transformations involving integrals have not been seen before. This is significantly different from the familiar transformation rules for a dipole, where the components transform as tensors. It enables quadrupoles to be correctly defined in gen…
In this work the detailed geometrical description of all possible orthogonal and nonorthogonal systems of coordinates, which allow separation of variables of two-dimensional Helmholtz equation is given as for two-sheeted (upper sheet) $H_2$, either for one-sheeted ${\tilde H}_2$ hyperboloids. It was proven that only five types of orthogonal systems of coordinates, namely: pseudo-spherical, equidistant, horiciclic, elliptic-parabolic and elliptic system cover one-sheeted ${\tilde H}_2$ hyperboloid completely. For other systems on ${\tilde H}_2$ hyperboloid, well defined Inönü--Wigner contractio…
We consider a superintegrable Hamiltonian system in a two-dimensional space with a scalar potential that allows one quadratic and one cubic integral of motion. We construct the most general cubic algebra and we present specific realizations. We use them to calculate the energy spectrum. All classical and quantum superintegrable potentials separable in Cartesian coordinates with a third order integral are known. The general formalism is applied to quantum reducible and irreducible rational potentials separable in Cartesian coordinates in E2. We also discuss these potentials from the point of vi…
Canonical quantization relies on Cartesian, canonical, phase-space coordinates to promote to Hermitian operators, which also become the principal ingredients in the quantum Hamiltonian. While generally appropriate, this procedure can also fail, e.g., for covariant, quartic, scalar fields in five-and-more spacetime dimensions (and possibly four spacetime dimensions as well), which become trivial; such failures are normally blamed on the `problem' rather than on the 'quantization procedure'. In Enhanced Quantization the association of $c$-numbers to $q$-numbers is chosen very differently such th…
