Intermediate Quantum Mechanics: Third Edition (Advanced Books Classics) [Paperback]

Roman Jackiw (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201328313 | ISBN-13: 978-0201328318 | Publication Date: December 2, 1997 | Edition: 3

Graduate students in both theoretical and experimental physics will find this third edition of Intermediate Quantum Mechanics, refined and updated in 1986, indispensable. The first part of the book deals with the theory of atomic structure, while the second and third parts deal with the relativistic wave equations and introduction to field theory, making Intermediate Quantum Mechanics more complete than any other single-volume work on the subject.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hans A. Bethe took his Ph.D. in Munich in 1928. In 1935, he came to Cornell University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In 1967, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, primarily for his explanation of the processes by which stars produce their energy. His early scientific work was mainly in the theory of atoms, of the solid state, and of atomic collisions. Later he concentrated on nuclear physics. His explanation of stellar energy grew out of his work in nuclear theory. Recently, he has worked on neutron stars and supernova stars. Roman Jackiw has been professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1969, after spending three years as a Junior Fellow with Harvard University’s Society of Fellows. His primary research area is theoretical physics and he has contributed to particle, condensed matter, and gravitational physics. Recently he received the Dannie Heineman Prize for mathematical physics from the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press; 3 edition (December 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201328313
• ISBN-13: 978-0201328318
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,875,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn to apply your quantum mechanics, August 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Intermediate Quantum Mechanics: Third Edition (Advanced Books Classics) (Paperback)

The "Intermediate" of the title means that you are supposed to have learned your basic QM in a book such as Griffiths' "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" . Bethe's text then leads you to those parts of QM most successful in applications, especially in atomic structure. The treatment of perturbation theory is very clean, simple and effective. The semi-classical theory of radiation is excellently described and then, in perhaps the best part of the book, is used to review Einstein's derivation of Planck's equilibrium distribution of radiation, explaining the need for spontaneous emmission and motivating the treatment of quantum electrodynamics, outlined at the end of the text. This is a great book. What else could one expect from Hans Bethe, the man who discovered how the Sun produces its energy?

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good overview, January 30, 2003

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intermediate Quantum Mechanics: Third Edition (Advanced Books Classics) (Paperback)

That quantum mechanics must be understood by anyone working in any area of technology is now well accepted. Indeed, semiconductor device physics, proteomics, and computational chemistry are just three of the more modern areas where a through knowledge of quantum mechanics is needed in order to make any kind of significant progress. This book, written by two of the major players in the development of quantum mechanics in the 20th century, is an excellent overview of how to do practical computations in quantum mechanics. The book is addressed primarily to the aspiring atomic physicist and spectroscopist, but it could serve well anyone interested in the applications of quantum mechanics, such as those in the aforementioned fields. Due to space limitations, I will only review the first 8 chapters of the book.

Chapter 1 is a brief overview of elementary quantum mechanics, and the authors set down the notation and units to be followed in the book. They state the main goal of the book, which is to solve the Schrodinger equation for an atom with nuclear charge Ze. This problem for one-electron is straightforwardly solved, but for more than one electron approximation techniques must be used, a few of which they mention. Since spin will have to be dealt with throughout the book, the authors include a description of spin 1/2 particles.

In chapter 2 the authors discuss the use of symmetry principles in quantum many-particle systems, pointing out the origin of exchange degeneracy and the Pauli exclusion principle. The authors also give an interesting discussion of the experimental determination of symmetry, particularly their argument for the absence of hidden variables.

In chapter 3 the authors give an overview of the quantum mechanics of two-electron atoms, pointing out that the calculations give six-figure agreement between theory and experiment. Perturbation and variational methods are used to solve the Schrodinger equation for this system, and show the origin of the triplet and singlet levels for the helium atom.

In chapter 4, the authors introduce another approximation technique, the self-consistent field or "Hartree-Fock" method, in order to calculate the excited states for the two-electron atom more efficiently. This approach involves using a variational trial function, called the determinantal wave function, as an ansatz, which because of orthogonality and parity considerations, results in a set of equations, called the Hartree-Fock equations, for the single electron orbitals. The "exchange term" in these equations is discussed in detail, involving a notion of a "nonlocal" potential. The physical significance of the eigenvalue in these equations is also discussed, and related to the famous Koopman theorem. It is proven also that atoms with closed shells leads to a spherically symmetric theory. The periodic table is shown to be a consequence of the Pauli principle and the Hartree-Fock calculation.

An improvement to Hartree-Fock, the Thomas-Fermi method, which does not include exchange, is discussed in chapter 5. Classified as a "statistical method", this method finds the effective potential energy experienced by a small test charge, along with the electron density around the nucleus. The authors show how exchange effects can be included using a procedure due to P.A.M. Dirac, which uses a concept of effective exchange potential, and one due to W. Lenz, which is a constrained optimization procedure, requiring that the total energy be stationary.

In order to remove the degeneracy in the atomic shells due to the Hartree-Fock approximation, the authors view it as a perturbation expansion in chapter 6, with the unperturbed Hamiltonian being the Hartree-Fock central field Hamiltonian, and the perturbation being the electrostatic interaction of the electrons minus a suitable average of it. The search for proper linear combinations of zero-order degenerate eigenfunctions to make the total Hamiltonian diagonal entails the use of the total orbital and spim angular momentum of all the electrons in the atom. Hence the authors outline in detail how to perform the addition of angular momenta in this chapter. The reader can see clearly the origin of the famous Clebsch-Gordon coefficients. This program is carried out in more detail in chapter 7, wherein the authors considers and atom which has an electron configuration distributed over several complete and one incomplete shell. The incomplete shell gives several different degenerate solutions, and this degeneracy can be removed by the assignment of angular momentum and spin quantum numbers to the orbitals in the shell. This chapter is characterized by a considerable amount of arithmetic in computing matrix elements, which can readily be handled by modern symbolic computation packages.

The contribution of the spin-orbit interaction to the level structure of atoms, ignored in the previous two chapters, is studied in chapter 8. The authors also consider the interaction of the electron configuration with an external field, such as a magnetic field. The spin-orbit interaction is not considered in a relativistic framework, but instead is given a "pseudo-derivation", in the words of the authors. The (correct) Dirac theory for spin-orbit interaction is given later in chapter 22. And here again, the matrix elements, and reduced matrix elements, considered in this chapter can best be handled by symbolic computation packages. This is particularly true for matrix elements of vector operators between states of different angular momentum, which the authors shy away from. The reader though can see the origin of the famous Wigner-Eckart theorem in the context of these computations. The Zeeman effect, resulting from the interaction of an electron with a homogeneous magnetic field, is discussed, along with the Paschen-Back effect, which results from the external magnetic field being strong enough to allow the Zeeman term in the Hamiltonian to dominate the spin-orbit interaction. Also discussed is the Stark effect, which results when an atom is placed in an external electric field. The authors show how to compute the energy shifts in this case, using, but not proving, some formulas due to Condon and Shortly.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very good, March 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Intermediate Quantum Mechanics (Lecture Notes and Supplements in Physics) (Paperback)

This is a very useful book, but only for someone with a solid grasp of QM at the undergrad level. The only problem is the terrible type in which the equations are set. Why Addison-Wesley released a new edition without fixing this is beyond me.
(profit, perhaps? No, never on a scholarly textbook.)