Affine Extension of the Free-Particle--Oscillator--Inverted-Oscillator Triangle

Abstract

We study the one-dimensional linear-potential system as an affine extension of the conformal triangle formed by the free particle, harmonic oscillator (HO) and inverted harmonic oscillator (IHO). Unlike these homogeneous quadratic Hamiltonians in the $sl(2,\mathbb R)$ sector, the linear-potential Hamiltonian involves the Heisenberg ideal of the Schrödinger algebra. Its direct relation to the free particle is a regular accelerated-frame transformation, developed here at the levels of the classical action, canonical transformation, wave-function intertwiner and propagator; its HO and IHO realizations instead arise through singular displaced-oscillator limits. The Airy energy eigenstates follow from a cubic-phase transform of free-particle momentum eigenstates, from condensation of highly excited harmonic-oscillator levels, and from the limit of a subdominant parabolic-cylinder scattering branch of the inverted oscillator. We also develop a planar extension in homogeneous crossed electric and magnetic fields, where uniform acceleration generates the electric interaction, while uniform rotation produces the Landau coupling and the centrifugal inverted-oscillator term; the guiding-center dynamics yields the Hall drift.