Coupled harmonic oscillator systems: An elementary algebraic decoupling approach

We present simple explicit coordinate transformations which serve to decouple the Schrödinger equation for a pair of (not necessarily identical) harmonic oscillators in the presence of bilinear perturbing potentials. We derive general conditions for the decoupling, and give some examples of physical interest. These include the much studied example with just a static perturbation, the parallel problem with a dynamic coupling term, and the classic example of an isotropic two-dimensional oscillator in a transverse magnetic field, first solved by Fock (1928) by separation of variables.