Connection Between the Hydrogen Atom and the Harmonic Oscillator: The Zero-Energy Case

摘要

The connection between the three-dimensional hydrogen atom and a four-dimensional harmonic oscillator obtained in previous works, from an hybridization of the infinitesimal Pauli approach to the hydrogen system with the Schwinger approach to spherical and hyperbolical angular momenta, is worked out in the case of the zero-energy point of the hydrogen atom. This leads to the equivalence of the three-dimensional hydrogen problem with a four-dimensional free-particle problem involving a constraint condition. For completeness, the latter result is also derived by using the Kustaanheimo-Stiefel transformation introduced in celestial mechanics. Finally, it is shown how the Lie algebra of SO(4,2) quite naturally arises for the whole spectrum (discrete + continuum + zero-energy point) of the three-dimensional hydrogen atom from the introduction of the constraint condition into the Lie algebra of Sp(8,R) associated with the four-dimensional harmonic oscillator. (ERA citation 10:029020)