These comments introduce a series of articles which are based on material presented by the author (at an invited lecture and in demonstration sessions) at the January 1986 Institute of Physics meeting on Computation and Physics Teaching, held at the University of Essex. The articles will appear one at a time in successive numbers of European Journal of Physics , and the first follows this introduction.
These comments introduce a series of articles which are based on material presented by the author (at an invited lecture and in demonstration sessions) at the January 1986 Institute of Physics meeting on Computation and Physics Teaching, held at the University of Essex. The articles will appear one at a time in successive numbers of European Journal of Physics , and the first follows this introduction.
This book and the accompanying software (PC Diskette) is a toolbox for performing a set of numerical simulations on simple quantum mechanical problems. It is one in a series of similar books (CUPS) covering different fields in physics from classical mechanics to nuclear and particle physics. Each chapter of the book is written by a different author and deals with a different physical problem. The choice of problems is standard, e.g. bound state and scattering problems in one and three dimensions, quantum mechanical time development; the exceptions are, a study of identical particles and electron states in a one dimensional lattice, an example from solid state physics. Although the chapters are self-contained and can be studied independently (at the expense of some minor duplication of material), care was taken with a uniform style of presentation and similar format in numerical simulations. As a result, it is easy to proceed in the study of the different problems having understood the technical possibilities of one simulation. Each chapter starts with a section presenting the basic theoretical concepts to be studied using the numerical simulation. It is followed by a section with a short description of the numerical technique used and an extensive series of suggestions for problems and quantities to experiment with, using the computer codes provided. A final section describes in detail how to run the computer programs. This book is not, and is not intended to be, a textbook for learning quantum mechanics nor a textbook of numerical analysis. Nevertheless, I find the theoretical presentation clear and straightforward enough for its purpose. The extensive and up to date list of references to books and research articles at the end of each chapter is also very helpful. Technically, I found the software easy to install and, after some initial testing, easy to run. The produced plots are clear and the use of units of atomic dimension gives a touch of reality to the simulations. In contrast to other similar books, this is not a `picture' book of quantum mechanics where results of numerical simulations are illustrated; here the reader is given the necessary means to play and discover for himself the properties of quantum mechanical systems. I believe that this book, used by teachers for demonstrations and students for independent study, provides a versatile tool for numerical experimentation in quantum mechanics.
Quantum computing is a field of great interest, attracting, among others, the attention of many mathematicians. Although not all quantum mechanics is needed to successfully engage in research on quantum computing, the somewhat superficial approach usually applied by non-physicists is, in the opinion of the author of the lectures, not feasible. The following notes from lectures given at the mathematics department of George Washington University are meant to be a partial remedy to the situation, offering a very brief and slightly unorthodox introduction to one-particle quantum mechanics, and even shorter discussion of passage to multi-particle quantum mechanics, as needed for quantum computing.
This workshop, also known as CEWQO2009, was held in Turku, Finland on 23–27 May 2009. The main location was the new ICT building of the University of Turku. For one day, 25 May, the meeting site was changed to the large ferry boats that travel daily between Turku and Stockholm; the participants spent the morning following plenary talks, then swapped from one boat to another at Mariehamn (Åland islands) and enjoyed the scenic view of the archipelago in the afternoon. There were about 180 participants at the meeting, which proved to be very successful and was apparently enjoyed by all. The CEWQO meetings have a long history, starting from the first held in Bratislava in 1993. Quantum optics has always been a strongly developing research field. This is partly due to the fact that theory and experiments are closely connected in this field of physics, driving each other forward. Also, the distance between fundamental studies and the development of practical applications has always been short. Professor Stig Stenholm had his 70th birthday on 26 February 2009. Thus CEWQO2009 provided a suitable backdrop for celebrating the event, and 26 May was dedicated to Stig. His career in quantum optics, starting from work with Willis Lamb on lasers and continuing today on the fundamental aspects of quantum physics, is an excellent demonstration of the history of quantum optics during the last 40+ years, including laser spectroscopy, cooling and trapping of atoms, short laser pulses, Bose-Einstein condensation and quantum information. The organization of CEWQO2009 was carried out by the quantum optics community at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Turku, assisted by the Congress Office of the University. Financial support came from the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) and the Turku University Foundation. A separate book of abstracts appeared in the Report Series in Physics L 32, University of Turku. Special thanks goes to Roger Wäppling, the Managing Editor of Physica Scripta , for the opportunity to publish the CEWQO2009 proceedings in the journal. Finally, CEWQO2009 was one of the major events that led to the establishment of the Turku Centre for Quantum Physics (TCQP), in Autumn 2009.
In the course of lectures on quantum mechanics delivered for the undergraduate students of this university I have encountered a number of examples of more or less novelty and interest, which I want here in a series of papers to present before a wider circle. Since the familiarity with all kinds of problems leads eventually to a better understanding of quantum mechanics, just as we have been possessed with the complete master of classical mechanics only through the numerous exercises in schools, it would, I hope, be of some service for a future development of quantum theory. Some of matters I present are of older date and some of recent date.
The Tenth International Conference on Recent Progess in Many-Body Theories was held at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, over the period 1015 September 1999. During the meeting some 37 invited papers were presented orally, and approximately 65 contributed papers were given as posters. All of the invited speakers were requested to submit a paper for these Proceedings, and the Editors are grateful to the large majority, some 30, who were able to do so by the tight deadline imposed. Since the quality of the contributed papers was so high, the Editors have decided to include a selection of them in these Proceedings. Accordingly, we invited some 25 of the poster presenters to submit an article, and we have also incorporated these into the present volume. The Editors are extremely grateful to the rapporteurs of the two poster sessions, Sandy Fetter and John Negele, for their suggestions and advice in making the selection. However, the final decision on which contributed papers to include was made by the Editors, whose sole responsibility it remains. We are only too aware that, for reasons of space, we were obliged to omit many other interesting presented papers. We offer our apologies to the authors of those papers not selected, many of which were equally worthy of inclusion. In order to facilitate the usefulness of this book, related articles have been grouped by the Editors under a number of headings chosen by them. While these broadly reflect the themes of the conference sessions, we have not followed them exactly. In particular, the articles do not follow the same sequence as their presentation at the meeting. We are keenly aware that the classification scheme, and the grouping of the articles within it that we have adopted, are somewhat arbitrary. In particular, many articles would sit comfortably under more than one heading. The interested reader should not, therefore, follow the scheme too slavishly. Finally, we thank all of the contributors for the extremely high quality of the articles. We feel confident that the present volume will live up to the high standards set by earlier proceedings in this series.
"First of all, I would like to thank Prof. Griffith for his comments. The exchange has reminded me of the series of letters that appeared in Physics Today following the publication of an article by Chandralekha Singh, Mario Belloni, and Wolfgang Christian on improving the teaching of undergraduate quantum mechanics (see http://ptonline.aip.org/ journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_3/8_1.shtml). In those responses, both Griffiths and Travis Norsen argued that students’ understanding of quantum mechanics would be vastly improved if they were taught more about the foundations of quantum theory, and I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. The thing is, Griffiths argued vociferously that this should be done by teaching students according to his approach, as outlined in his textbook Consistent Quantum Theory, whilst Norsen argued that it should be done by teaching students the de Broglie-Bohm theory, i.e. precisely the sort of theory that Griffiths argues strongly against in his response to my article."