Properties of shape-invariant tridiagonal Hamiltonians

Abstract

It has been established that a positive semi-definite Hamiltonian,$H$, that has a tridiagonal matrix representation in a basis set, allows a definition of forward (and backward) shift operators that can be used to define the matrix representation of the supersymmetric partner Hamiltonian $H^{\left(+\right)}$ in the same basis. \ We show that if, additionally, the Hamiltonian has a shape invariant property, the matrix elements of the Hamiltonian are related in a such a way that the energy spectrum is known in terms of these elements. It is also possible to determine the matrix elements of the hierarchy of super-symmetric partner Hamiltonians. Additionally, we derive the coherent states associated with this type of Hamiltonians and illustrate our results with examples from well-studied shape-invariant Hamiltonians that also has tridiagonal matrix representation.