Quantum Mechanics

IUCAA - NCRA Graduate School

12 October - 11 December 2020

Things to remember:

• To contact me any time, remember that my office phone number is (020) 25719270. In case you want to contact me and do not find me in office, send me an email to tirth-at-ncra-dot-tifr-dot-res-dot-in.
• A Google Classroom has been set up for the course where various material will be shared. The link will be shared with only students who are taking the course for credits.
• The course is supposed to be consisting of 14 lectures. Every week, there will be two lectures and one tutorial session (devoted to discussing doubts, solving intermediate steps not covered in the class etc). We expect to have 14 lectures and about 6 tutorials so that the lectures are over by 27 November.
• The lecture slides will be uploaded to the Google Classroom before the lecture. Students are expected to go through the slides before the lecture so that they are able to follow the discussions in the class.
• There will be two assignments and one final examination which will be used for evaluating the course. These will have to be scanned (in PDF format) and uploaded to the Google Classroom.
• The assignments would be distributed to you, tentatively, on 26 October and 16 November, respectively. You will get about one week to return them back.
• The final examination is tentatively scheduled on 7 December 14:00 - 17:00. During the examination, you will be allowed to consult the lecture slides and any notes you have prepared.
• The evaluation procedure for the course is as follows: your final grade will be computed giving 50% weightage to the final exam and 50% to the assignments.

Course Outline:

• Basics: one-electron atoms, spin, perturbation theory
• Radiative transitions
• Fine and hyperfine structures
• Multi-electron atoms & molecules (if time permits)

Reading List:

• David J. Griffiths (2005), Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Pearson Education
• R. Shankar (1994), Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Plenum Press
• B. H. Brandsen & C. J. Joachen (1983), Physics of atoms and molecules, Longman Scientific & Technical
• J. J. Sakurai (1994), Modern Quantum Mechanics, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
• Frank H. Shu (1991), The Physics of Astrophysics (Volume I: Radiation), University Science Books, Part III
• T. Padmanabhan (2000), Theoretical Astrophysics (Volume I: Astrophysical Processes), Cambridge University Press, Chapters 4 and 7