Ladder operators in repulsive harmonic oscillator with application to the Schwinger effect

Abstract

The ladder operators in harmonic oscillators are a well-known strong tool for various problems in physics. In the same sense, it is sometimes expected to handle the problems of repulsive harmonic oscillators in a similar way to the ladder operators in harmonic oscillators, though their analytic solutions are well known. In this paper, we discuss a simple algebraic way to introduce the ladder operators of the repulsive harmonic oscillators, which can reproduce well-known analytic solutions. Applying this formalism, we discuss the charged particles in a constant electric field in relation to the Schwinger effect; the discussion is also made on a supersymmetric extension of this formalism.