Double-Step Shape Invariance of Radial Jacobi-Reference Potential and Breakdown of Conventional Rules of Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

The paper reveals some remarkable form-invariance features of the ‘Jacobi-reference’ canonical Sturm–Liouville equation (CSLE) in the particular case of the density function with the simple pole at the origin. It is proven that the CSLE under consideration preserves its form under the two second-order Darboux–Crum transformations (DCTs) with the seed functions represented by specially chosen pairs of ‘basic’ quasi-rational solutions (q-RSs), i.e., such that their analytical continuations do not have zeros in the complex plane. It is proven that both transformations generally either increase or decrease by 2 the exponent difference (ExpDiff) for the mentioned pole while keeping two other parameters unchanged. The change is more complicated in the latter case if the ExpDiff for the pole of the original CSLE at the origin is smaller than 2. It was observed that the DCTs in question do not preserve bound energy levels according to the conventional supersymmetry (SUSY) rules. To understand this anomaly, we split the DCT in question into the two sequential Darboux deformations of the Liouville potentials associated with the CSLEs of our interest. We found that the first Darboux transformation turns the initial CSLE into the Heun equation written in the canonical form while the second transformation brings us back to the canonical form of the hypergeometric equation. It is shown that the first of these transformations necessarily places the mentioned ExpDiff into the limit-circle (LC) range and then the second transformation keeps the pole within the LC region, violating the conventional prescriptions of SUSY quantum mechanics.

Keywords

• rational Sturm–Liouville equation
• Liouville transformation
• classical Jacobi polynomials
• form invariance
• shape invariance
• SUSY partners