PH 440 Introduction to Atomic and Molecular Physics (Autumn 2016-17)

Instructor Name: Prof. K. G. Suresh

Course Type: Core

Pre-requisites: QM I, Perturbation Theory part of QM II

Course Content: Hydrogen, Lamb shift; Angular momentum in multi-electron atoms; atomic magnetism, Zeeman and Paschen Bach effects; Hyperfine interaction; Nuclear interaction; Atomic spectra - vibrational, rotational; basics of NMR, ESR, etc.

Books: Brandsen, Joachain - Phy of Atoms and Molecules; Cagnac and Pabey-Payroula - Modern Atomic Phy; Fano and Fano - Phy of Atoms and Molecules; Bates and Estermann - Advances in Atomic and Molecular Phy (never read any of these - mentioned in the slides as references); usual QM textbooks like Shankar and Sakurai

Lectures: Attendance not mandatory; slides are a bit of a mess - too many errors; Prof. Suresh spends too much time spending qualitative stuff and too little on the actual calculations so you won't notice the errors till you go back and actually read the slides (which is usually much later before a test)

Assignments: Tutorials uploaded on moodle; no grading; easy or moderate difficulty; occasional discussions in class

Exams and Grading: Exams of moderate difficulty; 1 quiz, midsem, endsem, term paper - topics allocated by prof

Respondent: Umang Mehta