Teacher: Dan Styer, Wright 215, 775-8183,
Dan.Styer@oberlin.edu
home telephone 281-1348 (2:30 pm to 9:00 pm only).
Office hours: Please feel free to drop in between 8:30 am and 3:00 pm. (I am often in my office later, depending on my sons' high school schedules.)
Meeting times: This is a two-credit-hour, first-half-of-the-semester module course. Class: MWF at 11:00 am. Conference: Thursday at 10:00 am. Wright Laboratory room 114.
Course web site: http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/AppliedQM. I will post handouts, problem assignments, and model solutions here.
Textbook: David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
Topics:
This course treats atomic, molecular, and optical
physics, including:
Exams, homework, grading: There will be a two-hour open-book take-home exam due the Friday before Spring Break. Problem sets will be distributed on each Friday (except for the Friday preceding the exam) and will be due in class the following Friday; late papers will be accepted only in cases of illness. When writing your solutions, describe (in words) the thought that went into your work as well as describing (in equations) the mathematical manipulations involved. Anyone earning a final score of 50% or lower will not receive credit for this course.
Collaboration and references: I encourage you to collaborate or to seek printed help in working the problems, but the final write-up must be entirely your own: you may not copy word for word or equation for equation. When you do obtain outside help you must acknowledge it. (E.g. "By integrating Griffiths equation [5.96] I find that..." or "Employing the substitution u = sin(x) (suggested by Carol Hall)..." or even "In working these problems I benefited from discussions with Mike Fisher and Jim Newton.") Such an acknowledgment will never lower your grade; it is required as a simple matter of intellectual fairness.
David J. Griffiths, Introduction to quantum mechanics [QC174.12.G75 1995]
L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, Quantum mechanics, non-relativistic theory [530.123L231Q]
H. Haken and H.C. Wolf, The physics of atoms and quanta [QC173.H17513 1994]
H. Haken, Light [QC355.2.H33]
P.W. Milonni and J.H. Eberly, Lasers [QC688.M55 1988]
George Greenstein and Arthur G. Zajonc, The quantum challenge: modern research on the foundations of quantum mechanics [QC174.12.G73 1997]
A. Zee, Quantum field theory in a nutshell [QC174.45 .Z44 2003]
Kurt Gottfried and Victor F. Weisskopf, Concepts of particle physics (in two volumes) [QC793.2.G68 1984]
Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang,
Quantum computation and quantum information
[QA76.889.N54 2000]
(See also errata at http://www.squint.org/qci/.)