Physics 449 Atomic and Quantum Physics II

spring semester 2007

MWF 8:50-9:40 in 104 Van Hise, Final Exam 2:45 pm friday May 18

Office hours: M 2:30-3:30,T 10-11 (in 5330 Chamberlin), and W 2:30-3:30 in 4274 Chamberlin,

or by appointment

Mark Saffman
Department of Physics
office: 5330 Chamberlin
tlf: 265 5601
email: msaffman@wisc.edu
web: hexagon.physics.wisc.edu

Second semester of a two-semester senior course. Review of atomic and other quantum phenomena and special relativity; introduction to quantum mechanics treating the more advanced topics of atomic physics and applications to molecular, solid state, nuclear, and elementary particle physics and quantum statistics. Experiments underlying this course are covered in Physics 407. Prerequisites: Physics 205, 241, or 244, and Physics 311 and 322. Not open to those who have had Physics 531.

The course textbook is J.-L. Basdevant and J. Dalibard, "Quantum Mechanics"

Syllabus (updated 2007.march.28)

Honors Credit (updated 2007.march.28)

Homework assignments and solutions are available from the physics library course reserves.

Notes on various topics:

Laser cooling and trapping (Updated 2007.april.20)

Conversion between Gaussian and SI units (Updated 2007.february.25)

Special relativity notes (updated 2007.february.15)

Angular momentum notes (updated 2007.april.10) (error in Eq. (1.32) fixed)

Physical constants

Solution of the Schrödinger equation for hydrogenic atoms (updated 2006.november.28)

Mathematical formulae (updated 2007.april.30)

Dirac notation and rules of quantum mechanics (updated 2006.october.10)

Tutorial on Fourier transforms

Note that this tutorial uses a different convention than us. The prefactor in one-dimension is 1/(2pi) for the inverse transform (k->x) and just 1 for the forward transform (x->k). We are using a symmetric form where the prefactor is 1/sqrt(2 pi) in each direction.

Some interesting papers related to the course:

Some laser Cooling review papers:

Adams and Riis (1997)

Letokhov group (2000)

some BEC review papers:

Leggett - Theory (2001)

Cornell Wieman - Experiments (1999)

Cs Numbers

Einstein papers:

Einstein photoelectric effect (1905)

Einstein special relativity (1905)

Einstein radiation theory (1917)