PHYS 517: Quantum Mechanics (Fall 2022)
T Th 9:30-10:50am PAA A114
Fr 10:30-11:20am PAA A114
Instructor: Silas Beane B457 OH: Tu 1:00pm-2:15pm and Th 12:30pm-1:45pm
(zoom by appointment: https://washington.zoom.us/my/silasmotu)
TA: William Marshall B147 OH: W 10:30am-11:30am
Wilder Schaaf B241 OH: Tu 3:30pm-4:30pm
Subject matter and texts
This is the first quarter of a three-quarter graduate sequence on quantum mechanics.
A rough outline of the subject matter we will cover is:
Postulates of QM using Stern-Gerlach experiment and spin as a prototypical example.
Quantum kinematics: Inner-product spaces; Dirac notation; Operators; Unitary Transformations; Standard measurement theory.
Continuous various: x, p . Wave packets.
Time evolution; Schrödinger and Heisenberg representations.
Simple harmonic oscillator. Parity operator. Coherent and squeezed states.
1-dim Schrödinger problems, bound and unbound.
WKB approximation and relation to Hamilton-Jacobi equation in classical mechanics.
Path integral representation of QM
Electric and magnetic fields. Gauge invariance and Aharanov-Bohm effect.
The main text is Sakurai & Napolitano (SN), Modern Quantum Mechanics, third edition. We will aim to cover chapters 1 and 2.
Additional useful texts:
Quantum Mechanics by Eugen Merzbacher (Wiley, 1997, 3rd Ed.)
Lectures on Quantum Mechanics by Steven Weinberg (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013)
Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Ramamurti Shankar (Plenum Press, NY, 1994)
Quantum Mechanics: nonrelativistic theory by L.D. Landau & E.M. Lifshitz (Pergamon, 1977)
Quantum Mechanics by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (Wiley, 1977)
Lectures on Quantum Mechanics by Gordon Baym (Addison Wesley, 1990)
Quantum Mechanics by Albert Messiah (Dover reprint 1990 of 1962 text)
The principles of Quantum Mechanics by P.A.M. Dirac (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958 4th Ed.)
Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals by Richard R. Feynman & Albert R. Hibbs (Dover, 1965 emended edition)
Prerequisites
This is a core graduate course in physics. You must be a physics graduate student in order to take this course.
Communication
I strongly encourage students to communicate with me by email for administrative issues. I'll regularly communicate with the class by email.
But, please, no physics questions via email! Unless they are of the yes-no variety they will likely go unanswered. If necessary you may attempt
to visit me outside of office hours but please do not be offended if I'm unable to speak with you immediately.
Reading assignments
There will be reading assignments posted on the calendar below. I will usually not remind you about this; it will be your responsibility
to keep track of the calendar and to do the readings ahead of lecture. Failure to do the readings may result in you being unable to follow what
we do in the class period.
Homework, exams and grades
The grades for this course will be based on homework (20%), two midterm exams (25% each) and a final exam (30%). The final exam will be comprehensive.
There will be problem sets that must be submitted via CANVAS on Fridays before 11:59pm. In grading there will be a strong emphasis on neatness and logic
of presentation. The homeworks will be long and difficult. If you start working on an assignment the day before it’s due, you will not finish it in time. Late homework will not
be accepted unless there is a compelling rationale. I believe that most of what you’ll get out of this class will be from the homework. I encourage you to work on the homework
in groups. However, the work that you hand in must be your own, and you must list your collaborators on your manuscript as well as any references you have used (e.g.
if you find a solution to a problem on the web, you must cite the url). I take this very seriously; a failure to acknowledge sources may result in a loss of all credit for the
assignment, or worse.
Religious Accommodations
Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities.
The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/).
Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).
Calendar