Pairing interaction and its q-deformed versions

Abstract
We investigate the behaviour of the pairing model within the context of quantum algebras. The pairing Hamiltonian is diagonalized exactly for different values of the deformation parameter q in systems with 8 and 50 particles. The same Hamiltonian is solved with the help of the coherent state variational method. We find that the variational method gives reliable results when compared with the exact ones. We also discuss the differences between the two deformation procedures.