Physics 315: Advanced Quantum Mechanics -- Fall 2008

General Information

Prerequisites:Physics 211 and 212 or satisfactory performance on a placement exam.
Instructor: Roxanne P. Springer (Physics 252, 660-2676, rps@phy.duke.edu).
Time and Place: Tuesdays, Thursdays 1:15am-3:30 pm in Physics 299.
Teaching Assistant: Arya Roy (Physics 248, 660-2493, ar54@phy.duke.edu).
Text: Shankar, "Principles of Quantum Mechancs," 2nd ed.; Merzbacher, "Quantum Mechanics," 3rd ed.

Notes

  • Office hours: TBA; in the meantime e-mail me or Arya.
  • Reading out of Shankar: Ch. 8, 11, 20, 21.
  • Reading out of Merzbacher: Ch. 20, 22, 23, 24.
  • We will skip around in these books, and have readings from additional books, some of the chapters are only suggestions for you to read if you need the review; we will not cover all of them explicity. Please see me if you do not have access to Shankar and/or Merzbacher. There are copies on reserve at the library.

    Collaboration policy

    You are not to access any problem solutions from previous years. You may not access any quizzes, tests, or finals from previous years. However, you may speak in general terms and get advice from advanced students. You may work together with your colleagues in the course to discuss problems and work through conceptual or mathematical difficulties. But any solutions you turn in must be your own work. All teaching should be interactive! Please put your problem sets in Arya Roy's mailbox by 5pm of the due date. If you anticipate trouble with meeting the problem set deadline, please speak to me well in advance of the deadline. If you have not obtained permission from me to turn your problem set in at a later date and time, or you miss that later date and time without obtaining additional permission, you will receive no credit for that problem set.

    Syllabus

  • Symmetries
  • Path Integrals
  • Formal Aspects of Scattering
  • Second Quantization
  • Quantization of spin-1/2 systems
  • Quantization of spin-1 systems
  • Applications

    Problem Sets (All problem sets are due at 5pm on the due date):

  • Problem Set 1 : due Tuesday 2 Sep 2008.
  • Problem Set 2 : due Wednesday 10 Sep 2008.

    • Exams:

  • Midterm: TBA room 299
  • Final: Wednesday 10 December 2pm - 5pm room 299

    Suggestion Box