Reference Materials
CT: First Two Chapters and Appendices
LECTURE NOTES
REQUIRED TEXTS AND MATERIALS
Required: The primary required course textbook is a hardcopy or electronic copy of Volumes 1 and 2 of Quantum Mechanics by C. Cohen-Tannoudji, B. Diu, & F. Laloe, published by Wiley & Sons. The 3rd edition of this classic textbook (printed in 2019) has three volumes. The earlier 1st and 2nd editions each have two volumes, and are no longer in print. New or used copies of Volumes 1 and 2 of any edition are required. The 3rd volume of the 3rd edition is not used in this course and does not need to be purchased.
Required: Field Guide to Quantum Mechanics, by Brian P. Anderson, published by SPIE Press, 2019. UA students can obtain a free PDF copy from the SPIE Digital Library website via a subscription held by the UA Libraries. From the UA Libraries main website (library.arizona.edu) perform a Library Search with the title “Field Guide to Quantum Mechanics” (including quotes makes the search results easier to navigate). The book should be the only result. Then select the book. OR, you can just click here rather than doing the previous steps. Select the link for SPIE Digital Library eBooks. If you are logged in with your UA NetID, you will then be able to download the entire PDF, otherwise you will need to log in with your UA NetID first. You may also purchase a hardcopy of the book through SPIE press or elsewhere.
Required: OPTI 570 handwritten class notes. A free PDF copy will be available to all students through this website. Bound copies may be available for purchase through UA FastCopy (this option will be discussed in class at the beginning of the semester) or borrowed from a student who previously took OPTI 570 (printed versions of these notes were required of the students in previous years). These class notes contain content presented in lectures, expanded discussions of the content of the Field Guide to Quantum Mechanics, and other required reading.
Preparing for 505R:
Key 512R Lectures
For those of you taking OPTI 505R in the Spring semester of your first year of the PhD program, you likely did not take OPTI 512R, a prereq for OPTI 505R. Here is some information for you on the OPTI 512R material that you should look through in order to prepare for OPTI 505.
From Prof. Tom Milster (who usually teaches OPTI 505R): “I suggest using iTunes U OPTI512 lectures 1-9, 12 and the first 24 minutes of lecture 15. Note that these lectures have notes accompanying them that are also listed in iTunes U, so the line numbers in iTunes U go from 1-18 and 23 & 25 and 29 & 30 for these lectures. I realize that the total number of lectures I suggested is 11. If some lecture information needs to be cut from my list, I suggest cutting some of the harmonic analysis information in Lecture 3.”
While there are now more recent recordings of 512R lectures, the set of lectures that Prof. Milster has been recommending for the last few years was recorded by a previous OPTI 512R lecturer (former OSC professor Scott Tyo). It looks like the following link should be what you need:
8/24/22: THIS LINK IS NO LONGER WORKING since Apple shut down itunes-u. Students will be given access to other 512R lectures (perhaps the most recent Fall 512R recordings).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/opti512r-linear-systems-fourier/id413140966?mt=10.
I believe you will need to open the lectures using iTunes. From what I remember in talking with Prof. Milster, this material is not needed for the first few lectures of 505R so you do not need to have gone through it all prior to the start of the spring semester. You might also want to talk with OPTI 570 students from the previous couple of years who took OPTI 505R without having had OPTI 512R to get their ideas on what was most helpful for them, especially since there’s a lot of material here. You probably won’t need to watch all of the lectures, since (for example) Lecture 1 is on Complex Numbers, Lecture 6 is on Fourier transforms, and there are likely some other topics that some of you will have seen.