It is interesting to know when to expect the wave nature of a particle propagation to be well approximated by the properties of the trajectory of a classical particle. Usually, whenever there is an integral expression for a given quantity, it is often easier to employ approximate methods compared to a differential equation. It is simply a matter of convenience representing a path by a classical path and fluctuations around it. For the quasi-classical approximation, however, it is critical to expand around the path leading to the dominant contribution, i.e. the classical path. The knowledge of the stationary phase approximation is very appropriate to apply to path integration. This heading examines some specific systems of particular interest in people investigation. The harmonic oscillator has practical applications in a variety of domains of modern physics, such as molecular spectroscopy, solid state physics, nuclear structure, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and so on.
It is interesting to know when to expect the wave nature of a particle propagation to be well approximated by the properties of the trajectory of a classical particle. Usually, whenever there is an integral expression for a given quantity, it is often easier to employ approximate methods compared to a differential equation. It is simply a matter of convenience representing a path by a classical path and fluctuations around it. For the quasi-classical approximation, however, it is critical to expand around the path leading to the dominant contribution, i.e. the classical path. The knowledge of the stationary phase approximation is very appropriate to apply to path integration. This heading examines some specific systems of particular interest in people investigation. The harmonic oscillator has practical applications in a variety of domains of modern physics, such as molecular spectroscopy, solid state physics, nuclear structure, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and so on.
These lectures are intended as an introduction to the technique of path integrals and their applications in physics. The audience is mainly first-year graduate students, and it is assumed that the reader has a good foundation in quantum mechanics. No prior exposure to path integrals is assumed, however. The path integral is a formulation of quantum mechanics equivalent to the standard formulations, offering a new way of looking at the subject which is, arguably, more intuitive than the usual approaches. Applications of path integrals are as vast as those of quantum mechanics itself, including the quantum mechanics of a single particle, statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics and quantum field theory. After an introduction including a very brief historical overview of the subject, we derive a path integral expression for the propagator in quantum mechanics, including the free particle and harmonic oscillator as examples. We then discuss a variety of applications, including path integrals in multiply-connected spaces, Euclidean path integrals and statistical mechanics, perturbation theory in quantum mechanics and in quantum field theory, and instantons via path integrals. For the most part, the emphasis is on explicit calculations in the familiar setting of quantum mechanics, with some discussion (often brief and schematic) of how these ideas can be applied to more complicated situations such as field theory.
Written for a two-semester graduate course in Quantum Mechanics, this comprehensive text helps develop the tools and formalism of Quantum Mechanics and its applications to physical systems. It suits students who have taken some introductory Quantum Mechanics and Modern Physics courses at undergraduate level, but it is self-contained and does not assume any specific background knowledge beyond appropriate fluency in mathematics. The text takes a modern logical approach rather than a historical one and it covers standard material, such as the hydrogen atom and the harmonic oscillator, the WKB approximations and Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization. Important modern topics and examples are also described, including Berry phase, quantum information, complexity and chaos, decoherence and thermalization, nonstandard statistics, as well as more advanced material such as path integrals, scattering theory, multiparticles and Fock space. Readers will gain a broad overview of Quantum Mechanics, as solid preparation for further study or research.
Written for a two-semester graduate course in Quantum Mechanics, this comprehensive text helps develop the tools and formalism of Quantum Mechanics and its applications to physical systems. It suits students who have taken some introductory Quantum Mechanics and Modern Physics courses at undergraduate level, but it is self-contained and does not assume any specific background knowledge beyond appropriate fluency in mathematics. The text takes a modern logical approach rather than a historical one and it covers standard material, such as the hydrogen atom and the harmonic oscillator, the WKB approximations and Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization. Important modern topics and examples are also described, including Berry phase, quantum information, complexity and chaos, decoherence and thermalization, nonstandard statistics, as well as more advanced material such as path integrals, scattering theory, multiparticles and Fock space. Readers will gain a broad overview of Quantum Mechanics, as solid preparation for further study or research.
Written for a two-semester graduate course in Quantum Mechanics, this comprehensive text helps develop the tools and formalism of Quantum Mechanics and its applications to physical systems. It suits students who have taken some introductory Quantum Mechanics and Modern Physics courses at undergraduate level, but it is self-contained and does not assume any specific background knowledge beyond appropriate fluency in mathematics. The text takes a modern logical approach rather than a historical one and it covers standard material, such as the hydrogen atom and the harmonic oscillator, the WKB approximations and Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization. Important modern topics and examples are also described, including Berry phase, quantum information, complexity and chaos, decoherence and thermalization, nonstandard statistics, as well as more advanced material such as path integrals, scattering theory, multiparticles and Fock space. Readers will gain a broad overview of Quantum Mechanics, as solid preparation for further study or research.
In the first three chapters we have considered problems related to the physical behaviour of one or a few particles (or some other physical objects which can be effectively described by one or a few (quasi)particles as, e.g., the random walk model in polymer physics considered in chapter 1). Though quantum field theory describes systems with an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom (an arbitrary number of (quasi)particles), in chapter 3 we actually applied it to systems with a restricted and small number of particles (e.g., for the description of the scattering process for a few particles). Another way to express this fact is to say that in chapter 3 we have considered field theories at zero temperature. However, the majority of realistic systems contain many identical (indistinguishable) particles such as atoms, electrons, photons etc. An attempt to describe these systems in terms of the individual trajectories of all particles is absolutely hopeless. Instead, we are interested in the collective behaviour of systems and describe them in terms of partition functions, mean values, correlation functions, etc. The methods of derivation, analysis and calculation of such collective characteristics constitute the subject of classical and quantum statistical mechanics.
Written for a two-semester graduate course in Quantum Mechanics, this comprehensive text helps develop the tools and formalism of Quantum Mechanics and its applications to physical systems. It suits students who have taken some introductory Quantum Mechanics and Modern Physics courses at undergraduate level, but it is self-contained and does not assume any specific background knowledge beyond appropriate fluency in mathematics. The text takes a modern logical approach rather than a historical one and it covers standard material, such as the hydrogen atom and the harmonic oscillator, the WKB approximations and Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization. Important modern topics and examples are also described, including Berry phase, quantum information, complexity and chaos, decoherence and thermalization, nonstandard statistics, as well as more advanced material such as path integrals, scattering theory, multiparticles and Fock space. Readers will gain a broad overview of Quantum Mechanics, as solid preparation for further study or research.