PHYSICS 326: QUANTUM MECHANICS I
Fall 2007

Instructor: Prof. Michael S. Vogeley
Department of Physics
Office: Disque 811
Email: vogeley@drexel.edu
Phone: (215)895-2710
Office hours: Wednesday 3:00-4:30 p.m. , Thursday 2:30-3:30 p.m.

Animation of an excited state of Hydrogen, by Drexel student Glenn Winship.

Announcements
Course Meetings
Syllabus
Course Description and Philosophy
Course Outline
Textbook and Reading Assignments
Extra Notes
Grading
Problem Sets
Problem Set Solutions
Problem Hints
Exams
Course Schedule
Miscellaneous

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

QMI is over. Enjoy your vacation and I'll see you in January for Quantum II!. Solutions to the final exam are posted below.

Welcome to the home page of QM I. This is your resource page for information about the course, including homework assignments, exams, and solutions. This web page is also the syllabus for the course. To save paper, I will not print and distribute copies of documents in class. You may read them on the web or your computer and print out if you need.

Course Meetings

Lectures will be given on Mondays and Fridays 12:00-1:50 p.m. in Disque 919 (Monday) and Disque 109 (Friday). Our class meetings will be a mix of lecture and problem solving.

Syllabus

This web page is the syllabus. Please print this out and save it and/or bookmark this website for the future (no printed copies will be distributed). If you're reading a printed copy, and don't remember the URL, you can find the web page at http://www.physics.drexel.edu/courses/Physics-326. You should check the web page frequently for updates.

Course Description and Philosophy

Quantum Mechanics (QM hereafter) is one of the foremost intellectual achievements of the 20th century and forms much of the foundation of modern Physics. Many of the giants of Physics (Einstein, Bohr, Pauli, Dirac, Feynmann, et al.) were responsible for its development. Study hard and you will be rewarded by sharing in their insight.

In this first quarter of our three part sequence on QM, you will study the basic equations, discussed the similarities and differences between the classical and QM descriptions, and solve some simple, typically one-dimensional problems. In the second quarter, we'll move on to three dimensional problems, and the QM description of the Hydrogen atom, from which you could first see how the QM formulation yields accurate predictions of the observed phenomena, and begin study of multi-particle systems and perturbation theory. In the final quarter, we'll delve into more advanced topics include the variational principle, WKB approximation, scattering theory, and a deeper look at the interpretation of QM.

Course Outline


Here are the topics we'll cover in QM I

  1. The Wave Function (Ch. 1)
  2. The Time-Independent Schroedinger Equation (Ch. 2)
  3. Formalism of Quantum Mechanics (Ch. 3)
  4. Schroedinger Equation in Three Dimensions (Ch. 4.1)

Textbook and Reading Assignments

Required Reading: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd edition by David J. Griffiths, 2005, (Pearson Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ) ISBN 0-13-111892-7 This text will also be used for Quantum Mechanics II and III, so buy it!

See the course outline above for the chapters that correspond to the material covered in this course.

I will also hand out photocopies of selected passages from other QM texts, as necessary to supplement Griffiths.

Extra Notes

This is a brief (5 page) review of important Fourier transform properties and their relation to the free-particle wavefunction:
Fourier notes (PDF)

Grading

Grades will be based on the following weighting of different components of the course:
Final Exam: 40%
Problem Sets: 30%
Midterm Exam: 25%
Class Participation: 5%

Problem Sets (check for hints down below!)


There will be eight problem sets. You will have a week to a week and a half to complete each. No late homework will be accepted. Please neatly and accurately write up your solutions to these problems; the notation of QM is quite compact in places and small differences in the equations can have large differences in meaning. I will hand out solutions to the problems on or shortly after their due dates, to give you feedback as quickly as possible.

You may discuss the homework with your classmates, but you and you alone are responsible for the work that you turn in. Please write up your own solutions to the problems. Breaches of this policy will result in homework scores being divided by the number of ``participants.'' Second offenses may result in failure (of the class).

Use of solutions to these problems from previous years constitutes plagiarism.

Problem Set 1 (Due Friday, October 5):
Griffiths 1.5, 1.8, 1.11, 1.14, 1.18

Problem Set 2 (Due Friday, October 12):
Griffiths 2.2, 2.5, 2.7, 2.38

Problem Set 3 (Due Friday, October 19):
Griffiths 2.11, 2.12, 2.15, 2.42

Problem Set 4 (Due Friday, October 26):
Griffiths 1.17, 2.8, 2.14, 2.17

Problem Set 5 (Due Friday, November 9):
Griffiths 2.18, 2.19, 2.20, 2.22

Problem Set 6 (Due Friday, November 16):
Griffiths 2.29, 2.34, 2.35, 2.52

Problem Set 7 (Due Friday, November 30):
Griffiths 2.45, 2.46, 3.3, 3.4

Problem Set 8 (Due Friday, December 7):
Griffiths 3.27, 3.30, 3.34, 3.37

Problem Set Solutions


Problem Set 1 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 2 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 3 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 4 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 5 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 6 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 7 solutions(PDF)

Problem Set 8 solutions(PDF)

Hints on Problems


Problem set 1, problem 1.8: It is not necessary to look ahead to what we've started to learn from chapter 2. Instead, take the lazy man's approach to proving the result: test to see if a wave function with that extra time dependence is indeed a solution to the time-dependent Schroedinger equation.

Exams


The midterm will be in class on Monday, October 29.

The final exam will be held during the usual exam week.

Both exams will be half closed and half open book.

Midterm exam solutions(PDF)

Final exam solutions(PDF)

Course Schedule

Please note the following schedule of readings and assignments. This schedule may be revised, so you should recheck this web page. Notation of "HW#" indicates that a homework is due that Friday at the start of class. Exact due dates for the homework will be announced in class. You should do the indicated reading before class.

Week Class Dates Reading Homework Exams
1 September 24, 28 1.1-1.6
2 October 1, 5 2.1, 2.2 HW1
3 October 12 2.3 HW2
4 October 15, 19 2.4 HW3
5 October 22, 26 2.5 HW4
6 October 29, November 2 2.6 Midterm in class 10/29
7 November 5, 9 3.1 HW5
8 November 12, 16 3.2, 3.3 HW6
9 November 19 3.4, 3.5
10 November 26, 30 3.6 HW7
11 December 3, 7 4.1 HW8
12 No Class Final Exam, TBA

Miscellaneous


Hear Schroedinger's cat meow (He's still alive!)

Last update: December 17, 2007