Integrable quantum Stäckel systems

Abstract

The Stäckel separability of a Hamiltonian system is well known to ensure existence of a complete set of Poisson commuting integrals of motion quadratic in the momenta. In the present paper we consider a class of Stäckel separable systems where the entries of the Stäckel matrix are monomials in the separation variables. We show that the only systems in this class for which the integrals of motion arising from the Stäckel construction keep commuting after quantization are, up to natural equivalence transformations, the so-called Benenti systems. Moreover, it turns out that the latter are the only quantum separable systems (that is, they admit separation of variables in the Schrödinger equation) in the class under study.

13 pages, to appear in Phys. Lett. A