Graduate Qualifying Exam Topics and Textbooks

(revised 15 May 2020)

Classical Mechanics

Suggested Textbooks

  • Recommended textbook: John R Taylor, “Classical Mechanics”
  • Suggested additional reading: Fowles & Cassiday, “Analytical Mechanics”

Topics

  1. Velocity-dependent and position-dependent forces
  2. Conservation laws; energy, momentum and angular momentum
  3. Oscillations: damped, forced and coupled
  4. Lagrangian mechanics
  5. Central forces and orbits
  6. Mechanics in non-inertial frames
  7. Rigid body rotations

Electricity & Magnetism

Suggested Textbooks

  • Recommended textbook: David J. Griffiths, “Introduction to Electrodynamics”
  • Suggested additional reading: Purcell & Morin, “Electricity & Magnetism”

Topics

  1. Electrostatics and magnetostatics
  2. Electric and magnetic fields in matter
  3. Conservation laws
  4. Electromagnetic waves
  5. Radiation
  6. Potentials and fields
  7. Electrodynamics and relativity

Quantum Mechanics

Suggested Textbooks

  • Recommended textbook: David J. Griffiths, “Introduction to Quantum Mechanics”
  • Suggested additional reading: Stephen G. Gasiorowicz, “Quantum Physics”

Topics

  1. Wave functions; state functions and operators; uncertainty principle
  2. The Schrodinger equation (time-independent and time-dependent);
    exactly solvable potentials
  3. Angular momentum and spin
  4.  Hydrogenic atoms
  5.  Identical particles
  6.  Time-independent perturbation theory
  7.  Time-dependent perturbation theory
  8.  Approximation methods: variational principle; WKB approximation
  9.  Scattering

Thermodynamics

Suggested Textbooks

  • Recommended textbook: Kittel & Kroemer, Thermal Physics
  • Suggested additional reading: Daniel Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics

Topics

  1.  Thermodynamics
    • first and second law
    • potentials
    • Maxwell relations
    • thermodynamic processes
    • cyclic processes such as the Carnot cycle
  2. Equilibrium ensembles
    • micro-canonical, canonical, and grand-canonical
    • classical and quantum cases
    • applications
  3. Ideal quantum gases
    • Bose gas
    • Bose-Einstein condensation
    • Fermi gas