Physics 221A

Quantum Mechanics

Fall 2011

University of California, Berkeley

Instructor:  Robert Littlejohn
Office:  449 Birge
Office Hours:   Friday 1-2
Telephone:  642-1229
Email:  physics221@wigner.berkeley.edu
TA:  Austin Hedeman, Office Hours 1-2 Thu, Room 443 Birge austin@wigner.berkeley.edu

Lecture:  3 Evans (first day), 247 Cory (thereafter)
Time:  MWF 9-10
Discussion Section 1:   Thu 2-3, 102 Wurster
Discussion Section 2:   cancelled
Recommended text:   J. J. Sakurai, Modern Quantum Mechanics, Revised Edition (Addison-Wesley, New York, 1994)
  
Final Exam:  Thursday, December 15, 7-10pm
Location:  247 Cory

Organization and Logistics

The email address for this course is physics221@wigner.berkeley.edu.   Use this to send me emails if you have any questions etc. Also, I maintain an email mailing list for the course, and use it to send out announcements, corrections to homework assignments, etc back to you. If you received an email from me on Thursday, Aug 25, then you are on the email mailing list and do not need to do anything. If you did not receive an email from me, then send an email to the course email address (above) and ask to be added to the mailing list (you do not need to be enrolled). If you drop the course or don't want to receive any more announcements, send an email to this address with a request to be dropped. 

The course web site (this site) will be used to post lecture notes, special notes, homework assignments, and homework solutions.

There will be no discussion section during the first week. I will probably cancel discussion section 1, and rely on the Wednesday section plus office hours to cover your needs. I will schedule my office hour and, if necessary, the discussion section so the maximum number of students can attend at least one.

Prerequisites for this course include graduate standing and a full year of undergraduate quantum mechanics. Students who do not have this background are required to get instructor's approval before enrolling. In particular, this applies to all undergraduates wishing to take the course.

The grade will be based on homework and a final exam. Please keep the exam time open (please plan to be in Berkeley at that time).

Weekly homework assignments will be made available on this web site (usually) by Saturday of each week, and will be due at 5pm on Friday afternoon of the following week. Homework should be turned in in the 221A homework box in 251 LeConte (the reading room). I'm betting at this point that it will be possible to move the discussion section to Thursday, so I'm making the first homework due on Friday (one day after the discussion section).

Late homeworks will be accepted up to one week late at 50% credit. Homeworks more than one week late will not be accepted. Please do not ask the reader to take late homeworks. Exception: Each student is allowed one free late homework (up to one week late) during the semester, no questions asked.

Students are encouraged to work together on homework, and to trade ideas. There is no better way to learn. However, it is expected that the work you turn in is your own work in your own words. It is not legal just to copy someone else's solutions. It is also strictly illegal to look at or use solutions from any previous version of this course from earlier years. You can't find those solutions anyway without going to some trouble.

The text for the course, Modern Quantum Mechanics, by J. J. Sakurai, was chosen because of its good selection of topics, because of the generally deep perspective it takes in developing the subject, and because of his good physical perspective. Unfortunately, the explanations in the book are often poor and sometimes wrong; this seems to be due to the fact that Sakurai died before he could put his book into order. (His other book, Advanced Quantum Mechanics, which we will use in Physics 221B, is much better.) To make up for these deficiencies, most weeks there will be lecture notes made available which will supplement the readings from the text.

The content of Physics 221A is mostly a review of undergraduate quantum mechanics, presented from a deeper point of view and with a different emphasis. Some new topics are also presented. Physics 221B presents much new material, including an introduction to field theory and relativistic quantum mechanics. The course will have an emphasis on atomic physics that gradually turns into particle physics.

Movies for some of the lectures are available due to the efforts of Eric Corsini.

Lecture notes will be available in one of two forms. For some lectures I have typed-up notes. For those lectures without typed notes, I will usually try to supply hand-written notes, although I don't guarantee how closely they will follow the actual lectures. Nevertheless, it should be possible to get by without taking notes in class. Do not be afraid to interrupt the lecture to ask questions.


Homework assignments will normally be made available on this web site by Friday or Saturday of each week, and will be due at 5pm on Friday of the following week in the 221A homework box in 251 LeConte (the reading room). 



Typed lecture notes are available for some lectures, not others.





Homework Solutions for Fall 2011.



Reprints.



Extra Notes.