From ordinary to discrete quantum mechanics: The Charlier oscillator and its coalgebra symmetry

The coalgebraic structure of the harmonic oscillator is used to underline possible connections between continuous and discrete superintegrable models which can be described in terms of SUSY discrete quantum mechanics. A set of 1-parameter algebraic transformations is introduced in order to generate a discrete representation for the coalgebraic harmonic oscillator. This set of transformations is shown to play a role in the generalization of classical orthogonal polynomials to the realm of discrete orthogonal polynomials in the Askey scheme. As an explicit example the connection between Hermite and Charlier oscillators, that share the same coalgebraic structure, is presented and a two-dimensional maximally superintegrable version of the Charlier oscillator is constructed.