Quantum solvability of a general ordered position dependent mass system: Mathews-Lakshmanan oscillator

In position dependent mass (PDM) problems, the quantum dynamics of the associated systems have been understood well in the literature for particular orderings. However, no efforts seem to have been made to solve such PDM problems for general orderings to obtain a global picture. In this connection, we here consider the general ordered quantum Hamiltonian of an interesting position dependent mass problem, namely, the Mathews-Lakshmanan oscillator, and try to solve the quantum problem for all possible orderings including Hermitian and non-Hermitian ones. The other interesting point in our study is that for all possible orderings, although the Schrödinger equation of this Mathews-Lakshmanan oscillator is uniquely reduced to the associated Legendre differential equation, their eigenfunctions cannot be represented in terms of the associated Legendre polynomials with integral degree and order. Rather the eigenfunctions are represented in terms of associated Legendre polynomials with non-integral degree and order. We here explore such polynomials and represent the discrete and continuum states of the system. We also exploit the connection between associated Legendre polynomials with non-integral degree with other orthogonal polynomials such as Jacobi and Gegenbauer polynomials.