ABSTRACT

These lecture notes comprise a three-semester graduate course in quantum mechanics at the University of Illinois. There are a number of texts which present the basic topics very well; but since a fair quantity of the material discussed in my course was not available to the students in elementary quantum mechanics books, I was asked to prepare written notes. In retrospect these lecture notes seemed sufficiently interesting to warrant their publication in this format. The notes, presented here in slightly revised form, consitutute a self-contained course in quantum mechanics from first principles to elementary and relativistic one-particle mechanics. Prerequisite to reading these notes is some familiarity with elementary quantum mechanics, at least at the undergraduate level. Preferably the reader should already have met the uncertainty principle and the concept of a wave function. Prerequisites also include sufficient acquaintance with complex cariables to be able to do simple contour integrals and to understand words such as "poles" and "branch cuts." An elementary knowledge of Fourier transforms and series is necessary. I also assume an awareness of classical electrodynamics.

chapter 1|37 pages

Photon Polarization

chapter 2|8 pages

Neutral K Mesons

chapter 5|14 pages

Equations of Motion for Operators

chapter 7|11 pages

The Hydrogen Atom

chapter 8|11 pages

Cooper Pairs

chapter 9|22 pages

Potential Scattering

chapter 10|12 pages

Coulomb Scattering

chapter 11|21 pages

Stationary State Perturbation Theory

chapter 12|16 pages

Time-Dependent Perturbation Theory

chapter 13|40 pages

Interaction of Radiation with Matter

chapter 14|30 pages

Spin 1/2

chapter 15|15 pages

Addition of Angular Momenta

chapter 16|11 pages

Isotopic Spin

chapter 17|29 pages

Rotations and Tensor Operators

chapter 18|24 pages

Identical Particles

chapter 19|29 pages

Second Quantization

chapter 20|29 pages

Atoms

chapter 21|30 pages

Molecules