Applications of Quantum Mechanics
This course focuses on essential techniques needed for practical applications and research in Quantum Mechanics. We introduce a variety of approximation methods to understand systems that have no analytic solutions.
Applications of Quantum Mechanics
This course focuses on essential techniques needed for practical applications and research in Quantum Mechanics. We introduce a variety of approximation methods to understand systems that have no analytic solutions.
In this Quantum Physics course, you will learn about the primary perturbative methods in quantum mechanics: degenerate and non-degenerate time-independent perturbation theory, the semi-classical WKB approximation, time-dependent perturbation theory, the adiabatic approximation, and scattering theory. Together, these approximation methods represent a valuable set of tools that are broadly applicable across almost all of physics. We will use these methods to study a variety of systems that do not admit analytic solutions, including the fine structure of hydrogen, tunneling rates, radiative decay and molecules. We will also investigate the quantum mechanical description of a particle in a magnetic field, and discuss the symmetries associated with multi-particle systems in detail.
What you'll learn
In this course you will:
- Model complicated systems using quantum mechanics
- Construct various approximation schemes in quantum mechanics
- Develop your understanding of the time dependent processes in quantum mechanics
- Explain a quantum phenomenon in a written paper
Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with quantum mechanics at the level of 8.05x Mastering Quantum Mechanics.
Meet your instructors
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Professor of Physics
Barton Zwiebach
Barton Zwiebach
Professor of Physics
Barton Zwiebach is presently Professor of Physics at the MIT Department of Physics. Zwiebach was born in Lima, Peru. His undergraduate work was done in Peru, where he obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria in 1977.
His graduate work was in Physics, at the California Institute of Technology. Zwiebach obtained his Ph.D. in 1983, working under the supervision of Murray Gell-Mann. He has held postdoctoral positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and at MIT, where he became an Assistant Professor of Physics in 1987, and a permanent member of the faculty in 1994.