On the role of Schwinger’s SU(2) generators for simple harmonic oscillator in 2D Moyal plane

Abstract

The Hilbert-Schmidt operator formulation of non-commutative quantum mechanics in 2D Moyal plane is shown to allow one to construct Schwinger's SU(2) generators. Using this the SU(2) symmetry aspect of both commutative and non-commutative harmonic oscillator are studied and compared. Particularly, in the non-commutative case we demonstrate the existence of a critical point in the parameter space of mass and angular frequency where there is a manifest SU(2) symmetry for a unphysical harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian built out of commuting (unphysical yet covariantly transforming under SU(2)) position like observable. The existence of this critical point is shown to be a novel aspect in non-commutative harmonic oscillator, which is exploited to obtain the spectrum and the observable mass and angular frequency parameters of the physical oscillator-which is generically different from the bare parameters occurring in the Hamiltonian. Finally, we show that a Zeeman term in the Hamiltonian of non-commutative physical harmonic oscillator, is solely responsible for both SU(2) and time reversal symmetry breaking.