I am available at my office SmallHall 253, or in the superposition of my labs 032, 034, or 065.
This course is a continuation of our study of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. We will explore more advanced techniques and study specific examples from atomic, solid state, and nuclear physics. Over the course of the second semester, we will work through part II of the text book, including Perturbation Theory, Variational Principle, Identical Particles, Scattering, and other advance topics.
Yangli Zeng yzeng04@wm.edu will be assisting with this class. He is available from 2pm-4pm on Monday and Wednesday in Small 038.
Homework submission is done via Gradescope code 8E83K5
HW 01 due date Feb 08 11:59pm. Required reading Ch 11.1. It is good idea to review Ch 1.6 of the textbook.
HW 02 due date Feb 15 11:59pm. Required reading Ch 11.1-11.4, 11.7. It is good idea to review Ch 10 of the textbook.
HW 03 due date Feb 22 11:59pm. Required reading Ch 11.3-11.5.
HW 04 due date Mar 21 11:59pm. Required reading “the variational method” Ch 12 pages 432-436.
HW 05 due date Mar 28 11:59pm. Required reading beginning of Ch 12. Recommended reading Griffiths “Introduction to Quantum Mechanics” chapter “Identical particles”
hw 06 due date Apr 11 11:59pm. Required reading beginning of ch 12. Recommended reading Griffiths “introduction to quantum mechanics” chapter “identical particles”
Read chapter 13 (scattering), you may skip phase shift analysis section 13.5. But have a glance 13.5 - resonances starting at page 473, especially if you are inclined to be a particle physicist.
hw 07 due date Tuesday Apr 23 11:59pm (note the date change). Required reading chapter 13 and 14.5. Skip the phase shift analysis in section 13.5.
hw 08 due date Apr 30 11:59pm. Reading 14.5 and 14.7 (note that in class we do different (simplified) treatment. Recommended reading Griffiths 11.1-11.3.
We started - Time-independent perturbations (1st order)
Multiple tangents: radiative loss of energy by accelerating charges, radio, antennas; “unjustified” Bohr orbits; if electron orbits are stable why do we see light emission from atoms; lasers, pumping, population inversion, seed photons, stimulated emission, light amplification, mirrors feedback; vacuum fluctuation; uncertainty principle; definition of the temperature, laser and evaporating cooling.