Quantum Mechanics II (2026 Semester 1)
Lectures: Mondays & Thursdays 14:00 - 16:00
Discussion/Monitoria: Wednesdays 14:00 - 16:00
Classroom: 2022
TA ("Monitor"): ??
Prof.: Matthew Luzum (office 3097)
Homework lists:
Digitize the list and upload to Moodle by the due date
List 1 (Identical Particles -- due March 19);
List 2 (Symmetries 1 -- March 26);
List 3 (Symmetries 2 -- April 6 );
List 4 (Density operator -- April 10);
List 5 (Scattering 1 -- May 4);
List 6 (Scattering 2 -- May 18);
List 7 (Second quantization -- June 8);
Exams
Midterm exam 1 -- April 16????
Midterm exam 2 -- May 25????
Final exam -- June 18????
Lectures
March 9 -- Identical particles: Multiparticle states, evolution of multiparticle states, permutation symmetry, indistinguishable particles, 2 electron system (Sakurai Ch 6, Shankar Ch 10)
March 12 -- Identical particles: more than 2 particles, anyons, Young tableaux (Sakurai Ch 6, Shankar Ch 10)
March 16 -- Identical particles: Helium atom, periodic table, nuclear shell model, continuous symetries + conservation laws (Sakurai 6.4, Shankar 13.4)
March 19 -- Symmetries: Symmetry groups, parity (Sakurai 4, Shankar 11)
March 23--Symmetries: Parity, lattice translation (Sakurai 4, Shankar 11)
March 26 -- Symmetries: Time reversal (Sakurai 4, Shankar 11)
March 30-April 2 -- No class (Holy Week)
April 6 -- Density operator, Shannon entropy, Von Neumann entropy (Horodecki)
April 9 -- Quantum entanglement, entanglement entropy, EPR, Bell inequalities (Horodecki)
April 16 -- Exam 1 ????
April 20 -- Scattering: Introduction, cross sections, 2-body kinematics
April 23 -- Scattering: Green's function methods -- Lippmann-Schwinger equation (Sakurai 7.1)
April 27 -- Scattering: Born approximation (Sakurai 7.2-7.3)
April 30 -- Scattering: Optical Theorem, Partial waves & phase shifts (Shankar 19.5, Sakurai 7.6)
May 4 -- Scattering: Partial waves -- Hard Sphere (Sakurai 7.6-7.7)
May 7 -- Scattering: Partial waves -- Finite spherical well / barrier, Resonance scattering, scattering of identical particles (Sakurai 7.7-7.9)
May 11-- Scattering: Symmetry considerations (Sakurai 7.10), Coulomb scattering (Weinberg 7.9)
May 14-- Scattering: Eikonal approximation (Shajesh notes), General Scattering Theory - S-matrix and Dyson Formula (Weinberg)
May 18 -- Scattering: General Scattering -- S-matrix, Born, Fermi's golden rule, optical theorem (Weinberg)
May 25 -- Exam 2 ?????
May 28-- Second quantization: Fock space, creation and annihilation operators, number operator, non-relativistic Hamiltonian (Brown: Quantum Field Theory)
June 1 -- Second quantization: momentum space, ground state, equations of motion, relativistic theory, Klein-Gordon equation (Brown)
June 8 --
June 11 --
June 15--
June 18 --
June 22 --
June 25 --
Sugested texts
J.J. Sakurai, "Modern Quantum Mechanics", (chapter numbers refer to Revised edition, not second edition)
A.F.R de Toledo Piza: Mecânica Quântica
Shankar: Principles of Quantum Mechanics
Weinberg: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics
Brown: Quantum Field Theory
Any preferred reference that treats a given topic
Grading
The final grade will be based on the homework lists (10%) and the best 2 scores out of the 3 exams (45% each).
Exams 1 and 2 will each cover ~50% of the material, and the final exam will cover the entire semester. The lowest grade of the three exams will be thrown out and the remaining two exam scores will determine 90% of the final grade.
Program
Identical particles
Symmetries and conservation laws
Scattering Theory
Second quantization
Lecture notes