J an 1 99 9 A Unified Algebraic Approach to Few and Many - Body Hamiltonians having Linear Spectra

We develop an algebraic approach for finding the eigenfunctions of a large class of few and many-body Hamiltonians, in one and higher dimensions, having linear spectra. The method presented enables one to exactly map these interacting Hamiltonians to decoupled oscillators, thereby, giving a precise correspondence between the oscillator eigenspace and the wavefunctions of these quantum systems. The symmetries behind the degeneracy structure and the commuting constants of motion responsible for the quantum integrability of some of these models are made transparent. Apart from analysing a number of well-known dynamical systems like planar oscillators with commensurate frequencies, both with or without singular inverse-square terms and generalized Calogero-Sutherland type models, we also point out a host of other examples where the present approach can be profitably employed. We further study Hamiltonians having Laughlin wavefunction as the ground-state and establish their equivalence to free oscillators. This reveals the underlying linear W1+∞ symmetry algebra unambiguously and establishes the Laughlin wavefunction as the highest weight vector of this algebra. Typeset using REVTEX 1