Spring 2000, Section 0101, MARS #46877
WF 11:00-12:50, Room PHY 1402

Instructor: Dr. Ted Jacobson
Room 4117, Phone 301-405-6020
 jacobson@physics.umd.edu,  http://www.glue.umd.edu/~tajac
Office hours: Tu,W 2:30-3:30. Feel free to drop in.

Teaching Assistant:

Hock-Seng Goh  ("Goh")  Room  4221, Phone 301-405-7279  hsgoh@glue.umd.edu,http://www.glue.umd.edu/~hsgoh  Office hours: W 10-11, Th 3-4

• General course information
• Texts
• Topics
• Calendar (with topics covered, supplements, & homework)
• Class notes
• Homework solutions & grades
• Final course grades

General course information

Textbook: G. Baym, Lectures on Quantum Mechanics,  (Harper-Collins), ISBN: 0-805-30667-6.

Reserve books: The books by Baym, Cohen-Tannoudji et. al.,  Landau & Lifshitz,  Sakurai,
and Schwabl are on reserve at EPSL.

Web pages: Homework assignments and supplementary material at www.glue.umd.edu/~tajac/623c/, homework grades and solutions at http://www.glue.umd.edu/~hsgoh/.

E-mail: I encourage students to make use of e-mail for quick correspondence with me regarding lecture material, homework problems, or whatever. I will also use e-mail to communicate with the class at large.

Homework: Assigned weekly and due the following week. Late homework accepted only under dire circumstances. If you know it will be impossible to turn in an assignment on time you must discuss this with me  in advance of the due date. The homework is an essential part of the course. I believe most of what you learn will come from doing the homework. You are encouraged to discuss the homework with others, but what you finally hand in should be your own work.  Sources (e.g. textbooks or classmates) should be cited when used heavily in a homework solution. Please make sure you include your name and the homework and course numbers and staple the pages together.

Exams: One two-hour mid-term and a final. The final is Friday,  May 19, 8:00am-10:00am.

Grading:  Based on homework (30%), one mid-term (30%), and final (40%),
with the best of  these raised by 20%  and the worst two lowered by 20%.
The lowest two homework scores will be dropped. I cannot say for sure in advance,
but I expect the letter grades to correspond to (roughly) (A) 100-80%, (B) 80-60%, (C) 60-40%.

Calendar (with topics covered, minutes, supplements, & homework)
 

Week &  Notes	Wednesday	Friday	HW & Suppts.
1.      2/2	stationary state  perturbation theory	stationary state  perturbation theory	hw1  Perturbation theory
2.      2/9	stationary state  perturbation theory	second order pert.,  polarizability,  variational method,  WKB	hw2
3.      2/16	WKB	add'n of ang. mom.	hw3
4.      2/23	add'n of ang. mom.	vector & tensor ops.,  Wigner-Eckart thm.	hw4  Irreducible tensor ops.
5.      3/1	Wigner-Eckart thm.,  projection thm., Lande factor	hyperfine structure,  2 electron atoms	hw5
6.      3/8	2 electron atoms;  many electron atoms;  Hund's rules	Hund's rules;  spin-orbit coupling for many-electron atoms;  Hartree-Fock; Thomas-Fermi	.
7.      3/15	Thomas-Fermi;  density functional method	MIDTERM EXAM	.
3/23	SPRING BREAK	SPRING BREAK	.
8.      3/30	molecules, discuss midterm	molecules	hw6
9.      4/5	molecules	time-dependent pert. thy.	hw7
10.    4/12	time-dep. pert. thy.	golden rule
11.    4/19	adiabatic theorem,  radiation	radiative transitions,  quantum electrodynamics	hw8  Einstein's 1917 paper,  Casimir effect
12.    4/26	QED,  longitudinal and transverse vector fields	multipole expansion,  selection rules	hw9
13.    5/3	scattering,  Golden rule and Born	validity of first Born approx.,  partial wave expansion	hw10
14.    5/10	partial wave expansion	low energy scattering,  bound states, scattering length	.
	FINAL EXAM: Fri. 5/19, 8:00-10:00 am		.