(revised 15 May 2020)
Classical Mechanics
Suggested Textbooks
- Recommended textbook: John R Taylor, “Classical Mechanics”
- Suggested additional reading: Fowles & Cassiday, “Analytical Mechanics”
Topics
- Velocity-dependent and position-dependent forces
- Conservation laws; energy, momentum and angular momentum
- Oscillations: damped, forced and coupled
- Lagrangian mechanics
- Central forces and orbits
- Mechanics in non-inertial frames
- Rigid body rotations
Electricity & Magnetism
Suggested Textbooks
- Recommended textbook: David J. Griffiths, “Introduction to Electrodynamics”
- Suggested additional reading: Purcell & Morin, “Electricity & Magnetism”
Topics
- Electrostatics and magnetostatics
- Electric and magnetic fields in matter
- Conservation laws
- Electromagnetic waves
- Radiation
- Potentials and fields
- 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
- Wave functions; state functions and operators; uncertainty principle
- The Schrodinger equation (time-independent and time-dependent);
exactly solvable potentials - Angular momentum and spin
- Hydrogenic atoms
- Identical particles
- Time-independent perturbation theory
- Time-dependent perturbation theory
- Approximation methods: variational principle; WKB approximation
- Scattering
Thermodynamics
Suggested Textbooks
- Recommended textbook: Kittel & Kroemer, Thermal Physics
- Suggested additional reading: Daniel Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics
Topics
- Thermodynamics
- first and second law
- potentials
- Maxwell relations
- thermodynamic processes
- cyclic processes such as the Carnot cycle
- Equilibrium ensembles
- micro-canonical, canonical, and grand-canonical
- classical and quantum cases
- applications
- Ideal quantum gases
- Bose gas
- Bose-Einstein condensation
- Fermi gas