Quantum Mechanics: a Complete

Written by Dr Alexandre Zagoskin, who is a Reader at Loughborough University, Quantum Mechanics: A Complete Introduction is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added-value features like summaries of key ideas, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your exam. The book uses a structure that is designed to make quantum physics as accessible as possible - by starting with its similarities to Newtonian physics, rather than the rather startling differences.

Advanced Visual Quantum Mechanics is a systematic effort to investigate and to teach quantum mechanics with the aid of computer-generated animations. Although it is self-contained, this book is part of a two-volume set on Visual Quantum Mechanics. The first book appeared in 2000, and earned the European Academic Software Award in 2001 for oustanding innovation in its field. While topics in book one mainly concerned quantum mechanics in one- and two-dimensions, book two sets out to present three-dimensional systems, the hydrogen atom, particles with spin, and relativistic particles. It also contains a basic course on quantum information theory, introducing topics like quantum teleportation, the EPR paradox, and quantum computers. Together the two volumes constitute a complete course in quantum mechanics that places an emphasis on ideas and concepts, with a fair to moderate amount of mathematical rigor. The reader is expected to be familiar with calculus and elementary linear algebra. Any further mathematical concepts will be illustrated in the text.

A student's first course on quantum mechanics provides the foundation essential for much of his or her future work in physics, be it in atomic, elementary particle, or solid state physics. This introductory textbook contains not only the foundations and many applications of quantum mechanics, but also new aspects and their experimental verification. It has as its particular virtues clarity and conciseness of presentation, while at the same time being self-contained. Comprehensibility is further guaranteed by the inclusion of all the mathematical steps required for a complete understanding. Carefully chosen problems help to consolidate the student's knowledge. In the introductory chapters, starting from the historical evolution of the subject, the fundamental postulates are developed inductively by means of an interference experiment. Thereafter the structure is purely deductive, covering all of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, plus the quantization of the radiation field in the context of optical transitions. As well as the quantum mechanical "essentials", for instance, detailed treatments of scattering theory, time dependent phenomena, and the density matrix, such topics as the theory of quantum mechanical measurement and the Bell inequality are dis- cussed. A separate chapter is devoted to supersymmetric quantum mechanics, an area which to date has been accessible only in the research literature.

More than a generation of Gennan-speaking students around the world have worked their way to an understanding and appreciation of the power and beauty of modern theoretical physics - with mathematics, the most fundamental of sciences - using Walter Greiner's textbooks as their guide. The idea of developing a coherent, complete presentation of an entire field of science in a series of closely related textbooks is not a new one. Many older physicists remember with real pleasure their sense of adventure and discovery as they worked their ways through the classic series by Sommerfeld, by Planck and by Landau and Lifshitz. From the students' viewpoint, there are a great many obvious advantages to be gained through use of consistent notation, logical ordering of topics and coherence of presentation; beyond this, the complete coverage of the science provides a unique opportunity for the author to convey his personal enthusiasm and love for his subject. The present five volume set, Theoretical Physics, is in fact only that part of the complete set of textbooks developed by Greiner and his students that presents the quantum theory.

More than a generation of Gennan-speaking students around the world have worked their way to an understanding and appreciation of the power and beauty of modem theoretical physics - with mathematics, the most fundamental of sciences - using Waiter Greiner's textbooks as their guide. The idea of developing a coherent, complete presentation of an entire field of science in a series of closely related textbooks is not a new one. Many older physicists remember with real pleasure their sense of adventure and discovery as they worked their ways through the classic series by Sommerfeld, by Planck and by Landau and Lifshitz. From the students' viewpoint, there are a great many obvious advantages to be gained through use of consistent notation, logical ordering of topics and coherence of presentation; beyond this, the complete coverage of the science provides a unique opportunity for the author to convey his personal enthusiasm and love for his subject. The present five volume set, Theoretical Physics, is in fact only that part of the complete set of textbooks developed by Greiner and his students that presents the quantum theory.

Wigner's quasi-probability distribution function in phase space is a special (Weyl-Wigner) representation of the density matrix.