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Quaternion, harmonic oscillator, and high-dimensional topological states

Quaternion, an extension of complex number, is the first discovered non-commutative division algebra by William Rowan Hamilton in 1843. In this article, we review the recent progress on building up the connection between the mathematical concept of quaternoinic analyticity and the physics of high-dimensional topological states. Three- and four-dimensional harmonic oscillator wavefunctions are reorganized by the SU(2) Aharanov-Casher gauge potential to yield high-dimensional Landau levels possessing the full rotational symmetries and flat energy dispersions. The lowest Landau level wavefunctions exhibit quaternionic analyticity, satisfying the {\it Cauchy-Riemann-Fueter} condition, which generalizes the two-dimensional complex analyticity to three and four dimensions. It is also the Euclidean version of the helical Dirac and the chiral Weyl equations. After dimensional reductions, these states become two- and three-dimensional topological states maintaining time-reversal symmetry but exhibiting broken parity. We speculate that quaternionic analyticity can provide a guiding principle for future researches on high-dimensional interacting topological states. Other progresses including high-dimensional Landau levels of Dirac fermions, their connections to high energy physics, and high-dimensional Landau levels in the Landau-type gauges, are also reviewed. This research is also an important application of the mathematical subject of quaternion analysis in theoretical physics, and provides useful guidance for the experimental explorations on novel topological states of matter.