Make the student acquainted with the main experiments and theories of the XX century physics and focus on the new interpretation of natural phenomena.
Prerequisites
Reccomened courses: Mathemathics I and II, Physics I and II, Mathematical methods for optics.
Teaching Methods
CFU:6
Total hours of the course (including the time spent in attending lectures, seminars, private study, examinations etc...): 150
Contact hours for attending lectures: 48
Type of Assessment
Oral examination. The duration is about 45'. The student will be required to present and discuss 2-3 specific topics of the program, typically 1-2 topics of quantum mechanics and one of special relativity. The evaluation:
The student will have to use an appropriate language demonstrating understanding of the main physical processes, and how the starting assumptions determine the final results. You will have to demonstrate knowledge of the main experimental results that led to the development of the theories covered by the course. More specific questions could be asked during the presentation of the topics to better determine the student's level of understanding. The student must be able to make simple calculations of orders of magnitude but also fully develop the mathematical model where this has been presented in class.
Course program
Elements of quantum physics.
Thermal radiation. Photoelectric effect. Compton effect. The concept of photon. Atomic model of Bohr for hydrogen. Franck-Hertz and Stern-Gerlach experiments. Atom-radiation interaction. The laser. De Broglie's waves. Davisson and Germer experiment. Heisemberg uncertainty principle. Shroedinger equation, eigen- functions and eigen-values. One dimensional examples: a particle in a square well and the harmonic oscillator.
Shroedinger equation in a central field.
Elements of atomic physics.
Spherical coordinates, the gradient and laplacian operators.
Angular momentum. Shroedinger equation for hydrogen atom. Separation of variables. Spherical harmonics as wavefunctions of angular momentum. Solutions of the radial Shroedinger equation. Bound state energies for hydrogen atom.
A short description of helium atom.
Elements of molecular physics.
Hamiltonian of a molecule and the Born-Oppenheimer separation. Shroedinger equations for diatomic molecules. Effective potential and the lowest order expansion. Rotational motion for a rigid diatomic molecule. Pure rotational spectrum of a diatomic molecule. Vibrational motion of a diatomic molecule. Vibrational and roto-vibrational spectrum: P, Q and R bands.
Elements of solid state physics.
Specific heat of solids. The Einstein model for the specific heat of solids.
Elements of special relativity.
Introduction to the definition of space and time in an inertial reference frame. Galileian transformations. Einstein relativity. Quadridimensional space-time. Lorentz transformations. Quadri-vectors. Relativity of simultaneity. Relativistic length contraction and time dilation. Proper time.
Velocity addition. Description of physics laws by means of quadrivectors. Momentum-energy quadrivector. Rest mass and energy, relativistic mass. Relativistic Doppler effect. Relativistic aberration of light.