PHY215A (Fall 08)
Quantum Mechanics

Instructor: Hsin-Chia Cheng (cheng [at] physics.ucdavis.edu)

Time & Place: Mon & Wed 8:30-9:50AM, 416 PHY/GEO

Office Hours: Tue 3:00-4:00PM, 433 Phy/Geo or just find me when I am not too busy with other things

Website: http://www.physics.ucdavis.edu/~cheng/teaching/215A-f08
Homework assignments and additional information can be found from the links of this webpage.
Also check http://my.ucdavis.edu/ course website for solutions and grades.
The class mailing list is phy215a-f08@ucdavis.edu and the messages sent to it will be archived at https://listproc.ucdavis.edu/class-secure/

Homework: Homework assignments can be found in http://www.physics.ucdavis.edu/~cheng/teaching/215A-f08/homework.html. 
There will be homework assignments every week (except the week of Midterm, tentatively scheduled on Wed., Nov 5). Doing the problem sets is an extremely important part of learning. You can't learn the subject by just listening to the lectures without working through things by yourself. They also contain some of the important topics that we won't be able to cover in class. You can discuss the problem sets with your classmates, but you are not allowed to copy other people's homework. Each of you is required to write up your own homework following your own understandings. Each problem set is due about one week after its assignment in class. The solutions will be given on MyUCDavis course website immediately after the class on the due day and hence no late homework can be accepted. (So even if you couldn't finish you should turn in what you have done.)

TA: Aleksander Zujev (azujev [at] physics.ucdavis.edu), Office hour: Mon, 1-2 PM, 406 Phy/Geo

Textbook: "Modern Quantum Mechanics," by J. J. Sakurai, Revised Edition. This is a widely used textbook for graduate level quantum mechanics course nowadays. We will not follow exactly the order of the book but the emphasis will be similar. The first half of the book is very good. Another useful and widely used textbook is "Principles of Quantum Mechanics," by R. Shankar, 2nd Edition, which takes a similar approach. It is more verbose so it will be easier for students to read by themselves. It's useful for the later part of the course and 215B. Owning these books is not required but recommended.

Grading: Homework 40%, Midterm 20%, Final 40%

Outlines of the course:

Topics	Approx. # of Lectures	Related Chapters in Sakurai	Related Chapters in Shankar
Introduction, Mathematical Preliminaries	3	1.1-1.5	Ch1
The Rules of Quantum Mechanics	3	3.4, 3.9	4.1, 4.2
Time Development Operator, Hamiltonian, Fundations of Wave Mechanics	4	1.6, 1.7, 2.1, 2.4, 2.6, A.1	4.3, 5.1, Ch9
One Dimensional Problems	3	4.2, 2.3, A.2-A.4	Ch5, Ch7
Theory of Angular Momentum	5	3.1-3.3, 3.5-3.7, B	Ch12, Ch14, 15.1-15.2
Wave Mechanics in Three Dimensions	3	A.5, A.6	Ch13

215B will cover approximation methods, including Variational method, WKB approximation, Time-independent perturbation theory, Time-dependent perturbation theory, Scattering theory etc.

Other Information

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