A Course in Quantum Mechanics Unique graduate-level textbook on quantum mechanics by John David Jackson, author of the renowned Classical Electrodynamics
A Course in Quantum Mechanics is drawn directly from J. D. Jackson’s detailed lecture notes and problem sets. It is edited by his colleague and former student Robert N. Cahn, who has taken care to preserve Jackson’s unique style. The textbook is notable for its original problems focused on real applications, with many addressing published data in accompanying tables and figures. Solutions are provided for problems that are critical for understanding the material and that lead to the most important physical consequences.
Overall, the text is comprehensive and comprehensible; derivations and calculations come with clearly explained steps. More than 120 figures illustrate underlying principles, experimental apparatus, and data.
In A Course in Quantum Mechanics readers will find detailed treatments of:
- Wave mechanics of de Broglie and Schrödinger, the Klein-Gordon equation and its non-relativistic approximation, free particle probability current, expectation values.
- Schrödinger equation in momentum space, spread in time of a free-particle wave packet, density matrix, Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problem.
- WKB formula for bound states, example of WKB with a power law potential, normalization of WKB bound state wave functions, barrier penetration with WKB.
- Rotations and angular momentum, representations, Wigner d-functions, addition of angular momenta, the Wigner-Eckart theorem.
- Time-independent perturbation theory, Stark, Zeeman, Paschen-Back effects, time-dependent perturbation theory, Fermi’s Golden Rule.
- Atomic structure, helium, multiplet structure, Russell-Saunders coupling, spin-orbit interaction, Thomas-Fermi model, Hartree-Fock approximation.
- Scattering amplitude, Born approximation, allowing internal structure, inelastic scattering, optical theorem, validity criterion for the Born approximation, partial wave analysis, eikonal approximation, resonance.
- Semi-classical and quantum electromagnetism, Aharonov-Bohm effect, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations, gauge invariance, quantization of the electromagnetic field, coherent states.
- Emission and absorption of radiation, dipole transitions, selection rules, Weisskopf-Wigner treatment of line breadth and level shift, Lamb shift.
- Relativistic quantum mechanics, Klein-Gordon equation, Dirac equation, two-component reduction, hole theory, Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation, Lorentz covariance, discrete symmetries, non-relativistic and relativistic Compton scattering.
John David Jackson (1925-2016) was a revered physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a faculty Senior Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. A theoretical physicist, he is well known for numerous publications and summer-school lectures in nuclear and particle physics, as well as for his definitive text, Classical Electrodynamics.
Robert N. Cahn is Senior Scientist, emeritus, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has conducted research in theoretical and experimental particle physics and cosmology. The co-author, with Gerson Goldhaber, of the text Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics, he has taught physics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
