A quick course in quantum mechanics

J. L. Martin

Enrico Fermi

Mark Linne

William H. Fink

It is critical that I begin by stating that, if you have never before completed a course in quantum mechanics and its applications, I would strongly encourage you to do so. While the material I incorporate in this chapter will brush quickly over the subject, there is an emphasis on brush and quickly. It is probably more useful as a review and reference than as a primary study source. The essential material is commonly offered in first-year graduate courses in both physics and chemistry departments. Physics courses will emphasize clear comprehension of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and plumb its depths with the exactly soluble problems and its formalism. Chemistry courses will spend less time on the exactly soluble problems and the formalism, but will emphasize the approximate solution of problems and have a molecular perspective. If you will use spectroscopic methods as your major tool to study biophysics, you will need a greater grounding in quantum mechanics than this chapter will provide.

Christian Grosche, Frank Steiner

A systematic classification of Feynman path integrals in quantum mechanics is presented and a table of solvable path integrals is given which reflects the progress made during the last 15 years, including, of course, the main contributions since the invention of the path integral by Feynman in 1942. An outline of the general theory is given which will serve as a quick reference for solving path integrals. Explicit formulas for the so-called basic path integrals are presented on which the general scheme to classify and calculate path integrals in quantum mechanics is based.

Shaofan Li, Jun Li