Quantum algebraic symmetries in atomic clusters, molecules and nuclei

Quantum algebras (also called quantum groups) are deformed versions of the usual Lie algebras, to which they reduce when the deformation parameter q is set equal to unity. From the mathematical point of view they are Hopf algebras. Their use in physics became popular with the introduction of the q-deformed harmonic oscillator as a tool for providing a boson realization of the quantum algebra SUq(2), although similar mathematical structures had already been known. Initially used for solving the quantum Yang-Baxter equation, quantum algebras have subsequently found applications in several branches of physics, as, for example, in the description of spin chains, squeezed states, hydrogen atom and hydrogen-like spectra, rotational and vibrational nuclear and molecular spectra, and in conformal field theories. By now much work has been done on the q-deformed oscillator and its relativistic extensions, and several kinds of generalized deformed oscillators and SU(2) algebras have been introduced. Here we shall confine ourselves to a list of applications of quantum algebras in nuclear structure physics and in molecular physics and, in addition, a recent application of quantum algebraic techniques to the structure of atomic clusters will be discussed in more detail.