ESSENTIALS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2021/2022
- Teacher
- ALESSANDRO DRAGO
- Credits
- 9
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- FIS/02
Training objectives
- This is an introductory course in quantum mechanics.
Its intent is to present the main physical ideas and some key mathematical tools of non relativistic quantum physics.
Topics to be covered include:
formalism of quantum mechanics; wave mechanics; theory of the angular momentum; perturbation theory; the hydrogen atom.
The main acquired skills include:
solving exactly or approximately some simple physical applications of quantum mechanics. Prerequisites
- Prerequisites of this course is a sound understanding of the subject matter of Physics I, Physics II, Analytical Mechanics, Analysis, Geometry.
Course programme
- There will be 72 hours of lectures and 20 hours of exercise classes.
The course is divided in three main parts
Part I:
The crisis of classical physics. The double slit experiment. Hilbert spaces and bra-ket notation. Measurements and observables. Translations and momentum. Fundamental commutation relations. Heisenberg indetermination principle. The harmonic oscillator.
Part II:
Time evolution and the Schroedinger equation. Free particles, potential steps and wells. The Heisenberg representation.
Part III:
The rotation group and angular momentum. Quantization of angular momentum. Orbital angular momentum, spherical harmonics and central potentials. The Coulomb potential. Addition of angular momenta and Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. The spin. Elements of time independent perturbation theory. Didactic methods
- Lectures and exercise classes.
Learning assessment procedures
- There will be a written test and an oral exam.
In the written test three or four problems must be solved.
In the oral examination theoretical aspects will be discussed and exercises will be solved. The final grade is a weighted mean of the grades of the written test and of the oral exam. Reference texts
- Luigi E. Picasso, Lezioni di Meccanica Quantistica, Edizioni ETS, Pisa (nuova edizione) 2015. ISBN: 978-884674310-7
Stefano Forte, Luca Rottoli, Fisica quantistica, Zanichelli, Bologna, 2019. ISBN: 978-880862055-2
Lecture notes collected from previous years are available:
http://www.unife.it/scienze/fisica/insegnamenti/elementi-di-meccanica-quantistica/materiale-didattico (UniFe password needed)
