Symmetry operation algebraic description

Algebraic description of symmetry operations is based on the following simple notion. Consider a point in a three-dimensional coordinate system with any (not necessarily orthogonal) basis, which has coordinates x, y, z. This point can be conveniently represented by the coordinates of the end of the vector, which begins in the origin of the coordinates 0, 0, 0 and ends at x,y, z. Thus, one only needs to specify the coordinates of the end of this vector in order to fully characterize the location of the point. Any symmetrical transformation of the point, therefore, can be described by the change in either or both the orientation and the length of this vector. 

We now show that the algebraic realization of the one-dimensional Morse potential can be adopted as a starting point for recovering this same problem in a conventional wave-mechanics formulation. This will be useful for several reasons (1) The connection between algebraic and conventional coordinate spaces is a rigorous one, which can be depicted explicitly, however, only in very simple cases, such as in the present one-dimensional situation (2) for traditional spectroscopy it can be useful to know that boson operators have a well-defined differential operator counterpart, which will be appreciated particularly in the study of transition operators and related quantities and (3) the one-dimensional Morse potential is not the unique outcome of the dynamical symmetry based on U(2). As already mentioned, the Poschl-Teller potential, being isospectral with the Morse potential in the bound-state portion of the spectrum, can be also described in an algebraic fashion. This is particularly apparent after a detailed study of the differential version of these two anharmonic potential models. Here we limit ourselves to a brief description. A more complete analysis can be found elsewhere [25]. As a... 

The present section on characters deals with the first question and provides an elegant description of the symmetries of function spaces. In the subsequent sections, matrix theorems are used for the construction of projection operators that will carry out the job of obtaining the suitable SALCs. The intuitive algebraic approach that we have demonstrated in the previous section has been formalized by Schur, Frobe-nius, and others into a fully fledged character theory, which reveals which irreps... 

---