Sheffer Polynomials and the s-ordering of Exponential Boson Operators

Abstract

The s-ordered form of any product of single-mode boson creation and annihilation operators, containing only a single annihilator, is computed explicitly. The s-ordering concept originated in quantum optics, but subsumes normal, symmetric (Weyl), and anti-normal ordering for any two operators satisfying a canonical commutation relation. Because the s-ordering map can be viewed as producing a function of a complex variable, its inverse is a quantization map that takes such "classical" functions to quantum operators. The explicit s-ordered expressions are derived with the aid of a parametric family of Sheffer polynomial sequences (or equivalently a parametric exponential Riordan array of polynomial coefficients), called the Hsu-Shiue family. To yield orderings interpolating between normal and anti-normal, this family must be extended.