Consider the Harmonic oscillator. **Some considerations:** $H_{xyz}=H$ is not a C.S.C.O. in $\mathcal{E}=\mathcal{E}_{xyz}$ by itself: even if we know the eigenvalue (the energy) of $H$ , we may not not the state of the system: *e.g* if $E=1$ , all we know is that the state is a linear combination of $\vert100\rangle,\vert010\rangle$ and $\vert001\rangle$ . However, $\{H_{x},H_{y},H_{z}\}$ is a C.S.C.O. This is easy to see. Now, $[H,L_{i}]=0$ since $H$ is rotationally invariant. One can prove that \{H,L^{2},L_{z}\} is a C.S.C.O. Thus, we get two basis for $\mathcal{E}$ : $\{\vert n_{x}\,n_{y}\,n_{z}\rangle\}$ and $\{\vert n,l,m\rangle\}$, one for each of the C.S.C.O.s found. We can of course go from one basis to the other. A common question asked is: **for a given n, what are the possible values of l?** I will try to answer this using a method which I haven't found anywhere, so I would like someone to confirm it. For example, for $n=1$, I know that $\mathcal{E}(n=1)$ is three-dimensional, since it is spanned by $\{\vert100\rangle,\vert010\rangle,\vert001\rangle\}$. Thus, one of the following is true: $$\mathcal{E}(n=1)=3\mathcal{E}(n=1,l=0)$$ or $$\mathcal{E}(n=1)=\mathcal{E}(n=1,l=1)$$ So, if I find one state of $\mathcal{E}(n=1)$ with $m=1$, then that state cannot belong to $\mathcal{E}(l=0)$ and so $\mathcal{E}(n=1)=\mathcal{E}(n=1,l=1)$ holds. Another example: $n=2$ . I know that $\mathcal{E}(n=2)$ is six-dimensional, since it is spanned by $\{\vert200\rangle,\vert020\rangle,\vert002\rangle,\vert110\rangle,\vert101\rangle,\vert011\rangle\}$ . Thus, one of the following is true: $$\mathcal{E}(n=2)=6\mathcal{E}(n=2,l=0)$$ or $$\mathcal{E}(n=2)=\mathcal{E}(n=2,l=0)\oplus\mathcal{E}(n=2,l=2)$$ So, if I find one state of $\mathcal{E}(n=2)$ with $m=-1$, for instance, then that state cannot belong to $\mathcal{E}(l=0)$ and so $\mathcal{E}(n=2)=\mathcal{E}(n=2,l=0)\oplus\mathcal{E}(n=2,l=2)$ holds. Is this argument correct? The results are, but I'm not sure the reasoning is: I assumed that, if I have a state with a certain l in $\mathcal{E}(n)$ , then all the $2l+1$ states $\vert n,l,m\rangle$ are in $\mathcal{E}(n)$. I do not know how to justify this. If the method or the question are still unclear, please tell me and I'll try to clarify them. ---------------------------------- After reading what Emilio and ZeroTheHero and some other things, I tried another method which seems more general. Here it goes. Let $$ \begin{cases} V_{1}=-\frac{a_{x}+ia_{y}}{\sqrt{2}}\\ V_{0}=a_{z}\\ V_{-1}=\frac{a_{x}-ia_{y}}{\sqrt{2}} \end{cases}\mbox{ and }\begin{cases} V_{1}^{\dagger}=-\frac{a_{x}^{\dagger}-ia_{y}^{\dagger}}{\sqrt{2}}\\ V_{0}^{\dagger}=a_{z}^{\dagger}\\ V_{-1}^{\dagger}=\frac{a_{x}^{\dagger}+ia_{y}^{\dagger}}{\sqrt{2}} \end{cases} $$ We have $$ [J_{z},V_{q}^{\dagger}]=q\hbar V_{q}^{\dagger} $$ $$ [J_{z},V_{q}]=q\hbar V_{q} $$ $$ [N,V_{q}^{\dagger}]=V_{q}^{\dagger} $$ $$ [N,V_{q}]=-V_{q} $$ So the “daggered” operators increase the eigenvalue $n$ of $N$ by one (and thus the energy by $\hbar\omega$ ), while the “undaggered” operators decrease it by one. Also, the $V_{q}^{(\dagger)}$ change the eigenvalue of J_{z} by $q\hbar$ . With this in mind, we can face the problem. *Assumption: All states of the system can be obtained by applying these operators to the ground state $\vert0\rangle$ . I don't know why!*-Please explain it if you do. For $n=1$ , the biggest value for $m$ one can get for a state of $\mathcal{E}(n=1)$ is $1$, since $(V_{1}^{\dagger})^{1}\vert0\rangle$ is the only way to get the maximum $m$ while (increasing $n$ to $1$) by application of the operators defined above, and indeed $L_{z}V_{1}^{\dagger}\vert0\rangle=\hbar V_{1}^{\dagger}\vert0\rangle$ . Now, this state, having $m=1$ , must have $l\geq1$ . It cannot be $l>1$ since this would imply that I had states with $m>1$ (obtained by applying $L_{+}$ to $V_{1}^{\dagger}\vert0\rangle$ ) in $\mathcal{E}(n=1)$ (the Hamiltonian commutes with $L_{+}$ because of rotational invariance and so does N ), which is absurd. For $m=0$ , we easily see that there is only one state: $V_{0}^{\dagger}\vert0\rangle$ . Since there is only one, it must be the one of $\mathcal{E}(l=1)$ . There is no need to analyze other values for m (negative values will bring nothing new). In conclusion, the only value for $l$ for states with $n=1$ is $1$ . Let us try something harder. For $n=3$ , the biggest value for $m$ for a state of $\mathcal{E}(n=3)$ is three, corresponding to the state $(V_{1}^{\dagger})^{3}\vert0\rangle$ . Clearly, there are no other states with $m=3$ in $\mathcal{E}(n=3)$ . Just like before, this means that the space $\mathcal{E}(l=3)$ is in the direct sum decomposition of $\mathcal{E}(n=3)$ . Now, for $m=2$ we only have one state $V_{0}^{\dagger}(V_{1}^{\dagger})^{2}\vert0\rangle$ , so there is no $l=2$ representation in the direct product decomposition. For $m=1$ , we have $V_{-1}^{\dagger}(V_{1}^{\dagger})^{2}\vert0\rangle$ but also $(V_{0}^{\dagger})^{2}V_{1}^{\dagger}\vert0\rangle$ , so there is one more representation (besides $l=2$ ) with states with $m=1$ . It can't be $l=2$ because there are no $m=2$ states. It is therefore an $l=1$ representation. Finally, for $m=0$ I only have two states: $V_{-1}^{\dagger}V_{0}^{\dagger}(V_{1}^{\dagger})^{1}\vert0\rangle$ and $(V_{0}^{\dagger})^{3} \vert0\rangle$ , which must belong to the two representations already found. Therefore, $l\in\{1,3\}$ .