Graduate Qualifying Exam Topics and Textbooks

(revised July 2023)

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

Recommended Textbooks

  • David J. Griffiths, “Introduction to Quantum Mechanics”
  • Stephen G. Gasiorowicz, “Quantum Physics”

Topics

(each numbered topic will be addressed by at least one question)

  1. Wave functions; state functions and operators; uncertainty principle.
  2. The Schrodinger equation: Time-independent and time-dependent.
  3. The Schrodinger equation: Exactly solvable potentials.
  4. Angular momentum and spin.
  5. Hydrogenic atoms.
  6. Perturbation theory: Time-independent and time-dependent

Thermodynamics

Recommended Textbooks

  • Kittel & Kroemer, Thermal Physics
  • Herbert B. Callen, “Thermodynamics and an Introduction to Thermostatistics”

Topics

(each numbered topic will be addressed by at least one question)

  1. Thermodynamics: First and second laws.
  2. Thermodynamic Potentials.
  3. Cyclic processes.
  4. Equilibrium ensembles: Micro-canonical, canonical, and grand-canonical.
  5. Equilibrium ensembles: Classical and quantum cases.
  6. Ideal quantum gases and Applications.