PHYS 485 Fall 2024
PHYS 485 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Schedule
Dates below are approximate. We may also cover slightly different topics late in the course, depending on how the semester goes.
| Week | Topic | Materials | Assignment | Reading | ||
| 1 | 26-Aug | Introduction; Wave and particle behaviors of light; Photoelectric effect | Slides | Townsend 1.1-1.3 | ||
| 28-Aug | Quantum Properties of light; single photon interference | Slides | Townsend 1.4-1.7 | |||
| 2 | 2-Sep | Labor Day - Holiday | ||||
| 4-Sep | Particles as waves – de Broglie; atomic interferometry; crystal diffraction; imaging | Slides | Townsend 2.1-2.2 | |||
| 3 | 9-Sep | Schrodinger's equation: motivation, wave functions, free particles | Slides |
|
Townsend 2.3-2.5 | |
| 11-Sep | Schrodinger's equation: wave packets, probabilities, uncertainty principle | Slides | HW 1 (due Sep 13) HW 1 solutions |
Townsend 2.6-2.8 | ||
| 4 | 16-Sep | Time-independent Schr. Eq, Particle in a box | Slides |
|
Townsend 3.1-3.2 | |
| 18-Sep | Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues, time dependence | Slides | HW 2 (due Sept 22) HW 2 solutions |
Townsend 3.3-3.4 | ||
| 5 | 23-Sep | Wave function properties, bound states | Slides | Townsend 4.1-4.3 | ||
| 25-Sep | Bonding, Simple harmonic oscillator | Slides | Townsend 4.4-4.5 | |||
| 6 | 30-Sep | SHO (cont.) | Slides |
|
Townsend 4.6-4.7 | |
| 2-Oct |
Scattering and Tunneling |
Slides | HW3 (due Oct 4) HW 3 solutions |
Townsend 4.6-4.7 | ||
| 7 | 7-Oct |
Principles of QM: Operators, commutators |
Slides | Townsend 5 | ||
| 9-Oct | Midterm Review (in-class) | Slides | HW4 (due Oct 11) HW 4 solutions |
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| 8 | 14-Oct |
Midterm Exam (in-class) |
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| 16-Oct |
Guest lecture: Qubits and quantum technology |
Slides | ||||
| 9 | 21-Oct |
Uncertainty relations, time evolution, two-level systems |
Slides | Townsend Ch 5 | ||
| 23-Oct | Entanglement; Schrodinger’s equation in 3D; angular momentum | Slides | Townsend 6.1,6.2 | |||
| 10 | 28-Oct | Angular momentum; Hydrogen atom | Slides | Townsend 6.3 | ||
| 30-Oct | No lecture | HW5 (due Nov 3) HW 5 solutions |
Townsend 6.4 | |||
| 11 | 4-Nov | Hydrogen atom level splittings; Intrinsic spin | Slides | Townsend 6.5 | ||
| 6-Nov | Spin physics, NMR, MRI | Slides | ||||
| 12 | 11-Nov | Identical particles; Multi-electron atoms | Slides |
|
Townsend 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 | |
| 13-Nov | Quantum Statistical Mechanics | Slides | HW6 (due Nov 15) HW 6 solutions |
Townsend 7.2, 7.5 | ||
| 13 | 18-Nov | Bosons, Blackbody radiation, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation | Slides | Townsend 7.6 | ||
| 20-Nov | Lasers; Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) | Slides |
HW 7 (due Nov 25) |
Townsend 7.7.-7.8 | ||
| 14 | 25-Nov to 29-Nov | Fall Break — 🦃 Thanksgiving 🦃 | ||||
| 15 | 2-Dec | Fermions: Fermi energy, white dwarfs | Slides | Townsend 7.4; 8.1 | ||
| 4-Dec | Solids: Band structure, electronic properties, semiconductors | Slides | Townsend 8.1-8.3 | |||
| 16 | 9-Dec | Neutron stars, superconductors | Slides | Townsend 7.4; 8.4 | ||
| 11-Dec | Wrap-up and Review | Slides | HW 8 (due Dec 13) HW 8 solutions Bonus HW (due Dec 19) |
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| 17 | Exam Week |
FINAL EXAM |
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