Course contents: QM Spring 2004

(This is a preliminary list and may be modified as the course progresses.)
  1. Foundations: states, operators, uncertainty relations, time evolution, Schroedinger equation, 1-D potentials
  2. Interaction with EM fields, Aharanov-Bohm effect
  3. 3-D potentials, spherical harmonics, Angular momentum algebra (Clebsch-Gordan coefficients, Wigner-Eckart theorem)
  4. Discrete symmetries: parity, time reversal, permutation, lattice translation
  5. Coherence, density operator, Bell's inequality
  6. Approximation methods: WKB approximation, sudden approximation, variational methods
  7. Stationary state perturbation theory: non-degenerate and degenerate (Stark effect, fine structure, Zeeman vs. Paschen-Back effect)
  8. Exactly solvable time dependent 2-state problems (NMR)
  9. Time dependent perturbation theory: interaction representation, constant and harmonic perturbations
  10. Scattering: Born approximation (Coulomb scattering, structure functions), optical theorem, spherically symmetric potentials: partial waves, phase shifts (hard sphere scattering, low energy scattering, bound states)
  11. Relativistic QM: Klein-Gordan equation, Dirac equation and more....