Mastering Quantum Mechanics Essentials, Theory, and Applications

by Zwiebach, Barton

• ISBN13: 9780262046138
• ISBN10: 026204613X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-04-12
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

A complete overview of quantum mechanics, covering essential concepts and results, theoretical foundations, and applications.

This undergraduate textbook offers a comprehensive overview of quantum mechanics, beginning with essential concepts and results, proceeding through the theoretical foundations that provide the field’s conceptual framework, and concluding with the tools and applications students will need for advanced studies and for research. Drawn from lectures created for MIT undergraduates and for the popular MITx online course, “Mastering Quantum Mechanics,” the text presents the material in a modern and approachable manner while still including the traditional topics necessary for a well-rounded understanding of the subject. As the book progresses, the treatment gradually increases in difficulty, matching students’ increasingly sophisticated understanding of the material.
 
• Part 1 covers states and probability amplitudes, the Schrödinger equation, energy eigenstates of particles in potentials, the hydrogen atom, and spin one-half particles
• Part 2 covers mathematical tools, the pictures of quantum mechanics and the axioms of quantum mechanics, entanglement and tensor products, angular momentum, and identical particles.
• Part 3 introduces tools and techniques that help students master the theoretical concepts with a focus on approximation methods.
• 236 exercises and 286 end-of-chapter problems
• 248 figures
 

 

Author Biography

Barton Zwiebach is Professor of Physics at MIT. His research is in theoretical particle physics and string theory, and he is the author of the undergraduate textbook A First Course in String Theory. The creator and lead instructor for the popular MITx “Mastering Quantum Mechanics” course, he taught undergraduate quantum mechanics at MIT from 2010 to 2020.
 

Table of Contents

Preface xv
I Essentials 1
1 Key Features of Quantum Mechanics 3
2 Light, Particles, and Waves 31
3 Schrodinger Equation 67
4 Wave Packets, Uncertainty, and Momentum Space 93
5 Expectation Values and Hermitian Operators 111
6 Stationary States I: Special Potentials 133
7 Stationary States II: General Features 171
8 Stationary States III: Scattering 211
9 Harmonic Oscillator 233
10 Angular Momentum and Central Potentials 255
11 Hydrogen Atom 281
12 The Simplest Quantum System: Spin One-Half 307
II Theory 335
13 Vector Spaces and Operators 337
14 Inner Products, Adjoints, and Bra-kets 381
15 Uncertainty Principle and Compatible Operators 427
16 Pictures of Quantum Mechanics 459
17 Dynamics of Quantum Systems 481
18 Multiparticle States and Tensor Products 519
19  Angular Momentum and Central Potentials: Part II 555
20 Addition of Angular Momentum 599
21 Identical Particles 639
III Applications 685
22 Density Matrix and Decoherence 687
23 Quantum Computation 737
24 Charged Particles in Electromagnetic Fields 761
25 Time-Independent Perturbation Theory 793
26 WKB and Semiclassical Approximation 849
27 Time-Dependent Perturbation Theory 891
28 Adiabatic Approximation 953
29 Scattering in One Dimension 999
30 Scattering in Three Dimensions 1025
References 1057
Index 1065