Table of Contents

• Course Outline

• General Information Sheet

• Material for downloading

• Textbook: No textbook required

• Course Outline

Quantum Theory of Many-Particle Systems

Physics 540, Fall 2000 Tentative Schedule August 30, 2000

Instructor: Wim Dickhoff

Textbook: Fetter & Walecka (very, very optional: sticker price $140 in the bookstore)

The outline below is still very tentative for classes later in the Semester. Reading assignments should be taken very seriously. The reading of handout pages is required. Other references to various books are optional reading but recommended to get a broader perspective. The table below should be read as follows: the third row of the table in the column under reading assignment refers to the reading of handout pages 3-9. These should be read before the first meeting of the class. The plan is to distribute the handout pages by e-mail in the form of a postscript file which can be printed on a favorite printer.

Hwk	Mtg#	Date	Reading Assignment	Topics
			Handout p.1-2 Course rules
	1	Wed 8/30	Handout p.3-9 Sakurai Ch. 6.1-2	Getting acquainted; what's the plan; course rules Identical particles; (Anti)-Symmetric two-body and many-body states; Fermion and boson scattering
1	2	Fri 9/1	Handout p. 10-18	Second quantization; Occupation number representation;Fock space; Operators
		Mo 9/4		LABOR DAY; NO CLASS
	3	Wed 9/6	Handout p.19-24 Sakurai Ch. 3.7	Independent particle model; Atoms; Nuclei;
2	4	Fri 9/8	Handout p.24-31 FW Ch. 1.3	Isospin; Fermi gases: Electron gas, Nuclear/neutron matter, 3He liquid; Symmetry considerations for two particles
	5	Mon 9/11	Handout p.32-36	Interactions; Examples of two-body interactions
	6	Wed 9/13	Handout p.37-41 FW Ch. 2.4-5 Phys. Today 12/99	Statistical mechanics; Ideal gas;Bosons at finite temperature; Bose-Einstein condensation
3	7	Fri 9/15	Handout p.41-45	Trapped bosons at finite temperature; Fermions at finite temperature; Fermion degeneracy in traps
	8	Mon 9/18	Handout p.46-49 Sakurai Adv QM Koltun Eisenberg Ch. 3	Quantization of the electromagnetic Field; Maxwell's equations ; Free field solutions; Photons and many-photon states
	9	Wed 9/20	Handout p.49-52 Sakurai Adv QM Koltun Eisenberg Ch. 3	Interaction of electrons with the EM-field; Emission and absorption of photons by atoms; Blackbody radiation; Laser principle
4	10	Fri 9/22	Handout p. 53-58 Sakurai Ch. 2.5	Single-particle propagator in one-particle QM; Time-evolution; Eigenvalue problems; Diagrams
	11	Mon 9/25	Handout p. 58-62	Scattering theory and propagators; Partial waves and phase shifts
	12	Wed 9/27	Handout p.63-67 Sakurai Ch. 2.1-2&5.6	Time-evolution; Pictures Schrödinger / Heisenberg / Interaction;
5	13	Fri 9/29	Handout p. 67-71 FW Ch. 3.6	Adiabatic turning on of the interaction; Gell-Mann and Low theorem
	14	Mon 10/2	Handout p. 72-75 FW Ch. 3.7	Single-particle propagator in a many-aprticle system; Spectral functions
	15	Wed 10/4	Handout p. 75-77	Single-particle propagator in the independent particle model; Comparison with experimental results: e,2e; e,e'p
6	16	Fri 10/6	FW Ch. 3.8-9	Wick's theorem; diagrams
	17	Mon 10/9	Continue	Analysis of perturbation theory
	18	Wed 10/11	Continue	Self-energy; Equation of motion method
7	19	Fri 10/13	FW Ch. 4.10 Handout	Hartree-Fock; infinite system Atoms
	20	Mon 10/16	Lindgren Morrison	Atoms (nuclei)
8	21	Wed 10/18	Handout	Beyond Hartree-Fock ; Second order
		Fri 10/20		FALL BREAK; NO CLASS
	22	Mon 10/23	RPA	Dynamic structure function (weak probe); Excited states; separable interaction & finite system
	23	Wed 10/25	Electron gas reading	Lindhard function; Plasmons (data including atoms)
9	24	Fri 10/27	Landau paper	Zero sound (data); Landau parameters
	25	Mon 10/30	RPA and self-energy	Results for electrons (GW) and nuclei
	26	Wed 11/1	Repulsive core	Brueckner Ladder diagrams; Galitski development; scattering in free space; Scattering length
10	27	Fri 11/3	Nuclear matter	Scattering of dressed particles
	28	Mon 11/6	Self-energy BCA	Results including second order; effective mass
	29	Wed 11/8	Nuclear matter	History and present status; Healing argument
11	30	Fri 11/10	Nuclei	PP RPA finite nuclei; instability Pairing in nuclei
	31	Mon 11/13	Pairing infinite matter	Cooper problem; instability; eigenvalues
	32	Wed 11/15	BCS	Superconductivity; superfluidity of 3He; d-waves
12	33	Fri 11/17	Nambu, Gorkov, Migdal	More formalism; neutron stars
	34	Mon 11/20	Baym Kadanoff or FW	Finite temperature I
		Wed 11/22		Thanksgiving Recess; NO CLASS
		Fri 11/24		Thanksgiving Recess; NO CLASS
	35	Mon 11/27	BK or FW	Finite temperature II
	36	Wed 11/29	BK or FW	Finite temperature III
13	37	Fri 12/1	Baym-Kadanoff	Transport
	38	Mon 12/4	Baym-Kadanoff	Applications; connection with field theory
	39	Wed 12/6	Gersch-Rodriguez	Compton profile; density matrices
14	40	Fri 12/8	Momentum distributions	Bose condensate; Gross-Pitaevski
	41	Mon 12/11	4He	Lambda-transition; superfluidity
	42	Wed 12/13	2D-electrons in magnetic field	Quantum and fractional quantum Hall effect
			e,3e; e,e'2N experiments

•  

   

• Information Sheet

   

  Phys 540 Course Information Fall 2000

1. FORMAT OF COURSE:

i. Three lectures per week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10-11am in Compton 245

ii. One hour review/discussion meeting a week where problems are presented by the students

iii. About one problem per class to be discussed during the discussion meeting

iv. A few computer assignments

v. No exams

vi. A paper discussing the material of a relevant set of articles from the literature related to the material of the course is to be turned in before the last class. This paper must be written in revtex format (used in Physical Review journals) and should contain a proper set of references. Using the documentstyle [pra,aps] the paper should be at least 7 but not more than 10 pages long and may include equations but not detailed derivations (if necessary they can be included in an appendix). Half a page containing a proposal for the topic of the paper is due during the last class before Fall break.

vii. A 30-minute presentation on the material of the paper is required. Attendance at all talks by other students is also required. This talk should include a motivation, a discussion of the method of solution and experimental data (where appropriate), a discussion of the results, and a summary plus conclusions of the presented material. The use of overhead transparencies is recommended.

viii. Classroom participation and discussion is mandatory.

ix. Reading assignments should be completed before the next class.

 

2. GRADING POLICY:

• Homework problems 20%
• Computer assignments 20%
• Paper 20%
• Presentation 20%
• Reading assignments 10%
• Everything else including class participation 10%

Downloading Information

You can download the course schedule and information from the regular website Acrobat Reader. 

• Tentative Course Schedule
• Handout section #1
• Handout section #2
• Handout section #3
• Handout section #4
• Handout section #5
• Handout section #6
• Handout section #7
• Handout section #8
• Handout section #9
• Problem #1
• Problem #2
• Problem #3
• Problem #4
• Problem #5
• Problems #6,7,and 8
• Problems #9 and 10
• Problem #11
• Problems #12 and 13
• Problems #14 and 15
• Problem #16
• Problems #17 and 18
• Problem #19
• Problems #20 to 23