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Professor Ryszard Stroynowski, Department Chair
Professors: Fred Olness, Ryszard Stroynowski, Vigdor Teplitz; Associate Professors: Thomas Coan, Kent Hornbostel, Roberto Vega; Assistant Professors: Robert Kehoe, Jingbo Ye; Visiting Assistant Professor: Simon Dalley; Senior Lecturer: Randall Scalise; Adjunct Lecturers: John Cotton, Cas Milner; Emeritus Professors: Jeff Chalk, George Crawford; Research professors: Marc Christensen, Gary Evans, Peggy Gui, Shane Palmer, Zack Sullivan.
Students enrolled in this program must complete either 33 term hours of approved graduate course work or 30 term hours of courses, including a research thesis. Every student’s degree plan must contain at least 18 term hours of graduate-level work in physics, including a prescribed sequence of three courses. Students also must pass an examination on the course work and, if applicable, defend their thesis.
Candidates for the Ph.D. degree must satisfactorily complete eight specified core courses, four elective graduate courses in physics, a minimum of 12 credit hours of research and a dissertation.
Students also must pass a comprehensive doctoral examination, which is a written examination on both classical and modern physics, typically taken near the end of the second year of the program. Upon passing this examination, the student formally is classified as a Ph.D. candidate.5337. Introduction to Solid-State Physics. Part of the core requirements in the master’s in materials science and engineering degree program. Crystal lattices and the reciprocal lattice. The free-electron model of metals. Crystal binding. Lattice vibrations-phonons. Thermal properties of solids. Energy bands in solids. Prerequisite: PHYS 3305.
5380. Concepts of Experimental Particle Physics. Principles of elementary particle physics and the experiments by which physicists learn laws obeyed by these particles, with reading of scientific articles. Prerequisite: PHYS 3305 or equivalent. PHYS 5382 is recommended.
5382. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics. A study of the development of quantum theory, including blackbody radiation, the Bohr atom and the photoelectric effect. Both the wave- and matrix-mechanics approaches will be studied, as well as a brief introduction to the Dirac formalism. Solutions to the Schrödinger equation for a variety of one-dimensional problems and for the hydrogen atom are discussed. Prerequisites: PHYS 3305 and MATH 3353.
5383. Advanced Quantum Mechanics. Applications and approximation methods in quantum mechanics. Applications to laser physics, solid-state physics, molecular physics and scattering. Prerequisite: PHYS 5382 or permission of the instructor.
5384. Quantum Physics II. Quantum statistics; band theory of solids; superconductivity, magnetism and critical phenomena; nuclear physics; and physics of elementary particles. Prerequisite: PHYS 5383 or permission of the instructor.
5393. Electromagnetic Waves and Optics. Theory and applications of electromagnetic wave radiation, propagation and scattering. Geometrical and physical optics. Guided waves. Lasers, coherent optics, interferometry and holography. Prerequisite: PHYS 4392 or equivalent or permission of the instructor.
5395. Introduction to Elementary Particles. Modern theories of elementary particles including relativistic kinematics, Feynman diagrams, quantum electrodynamics, quarks, weak interactions and gauge theories. Prerequisite: PHYS 5382.
5398. Applications of Quantum Mechanics. The principles of quantum theory are used in a study of radiative transition in atoms and molecules, quantum statistics, band theory of solids, semiconductor theory and laser physics. Prerequisite: PHYS 5382 or equivalent.
6321. Classical Mechanics. Topics in classical mechanics including the mechanics of a system of particles, the two-body central-force problem, Lagrange’s and Hamilton’s formulations, special theory of relativity, Hamilton-Jacobi theory and continuous systems and fields.
6332. Physical Properties of Materials. Electric, magnetic, transport, optical and elastic properties. Piezoelectricity. Electromagnetic and elastic wave propagation. Methods of materials characterization and nondestructive evaluation.
6335, 6336. Quantum Mechanics. Fundamental principles of quantum theory with applications to one-dimensional problems, the free particle and the hydrogen atom, and the spinning electron. Perturbation theory with applications to atomic spectra, systems of identical particles, scattering theory and Dirac theory of the electron. Prerequisites: PHYS 5382 or equivalent and MATH 3333.
6338. Condensed Matter Physics. Plasmons, polaritons and polarons. Optical properties of solids. Superconductivity. Atomic and collective magnetism. Atomic and collective electrical phenomena. Prerequisite: PHYS 5337 or permission of the instructor.
6341. Nuclear Physics. General properties of the nucleus, the two-nucleon problem, radioactivity, beta decay, interaction of charged particles and radiation with matter, detection methods, nuclear models, nuclear reactions and neutron physics. Prerequisite: PHYS 6335 or permission of the instructor.
6351. Statistical Mechanics. Derivation of classical and quantum statistical distribution functions, partition functions, the laws of thermodynamics, ensemble theory and applications to gases and solids. Prerequisite: PHYS 3374 or permission of the instructor.
6361. Selected Topics in Physics.
6398, 6399. Thesis.
7170. Current Topics in Physics.
7305. Methods of Theoretical Physics. Mathematical methods, theory of analytic functions, evaluation of integrals, linear vector spaces, special functions, integral equations, tensor analysis, calculus of variations and group theory. Prerequisites: Working knowledge of complex variables, Fourier transforms and partial differential equations.
7311, 7312. Electromagnetic Theory. Boundary-value problems in electrostatics, dielectrics, magnetic media, Maxwell’s equations, electromagnetic waves, refraction and reflection, wave guides and cavities. Electromagnetic radiation, diffraction and interference, plasma physics, special relativity, dynamics of charged particles and multipole expansion. Prerequisite: PHYS 5393 or permission of the instructor.
7314. Quantum Field Theory I. Classical fields, symmetry transformations and conservation laws, the quantum theory of radiation, relativistic quantum mechanics of spin-1/2 particles, second quantization and the theory of interaction fields. Covariant perturbation theory, collision phenomena in quantum electrodynamics and renormalization. Prerequisite: PHYS 6336.
7315. Quantum Field Theory II. Path integral formulation, renormalization group, symmetry structure, formal aspects and nonabelian gauge theories. Prerequisite: PHYS 7314 or permission of the instructor.
7321. Atomic Physics. The central-field model of atomic structure, the Hartree methods; angular momentum and the vector model of the atom; antisymmetry and the determinantal method: theory of multiplets; and magnetics properties of atoms. Prerequisites: PHYS 6336 or working knowledge of quantum mechanics and permission of the instructor.
7330. Physics of Quantum Electronics. Interactions of electromagnetic radiation with atomic systems, absorption and dispersion, line-broadening mechanisms and amplification. Quantum theory of light scattering: Rayleigh, Raman and Brillouin scattering. Theory of lasers. Coherent pulse propagation. Nonlinear optical processes. Prerequisite: PHYS 6336 or working knowledge of quantum mechanics and permission of the instructor.
7341. Theoretical Nuclear Physics. Properties of nuclear forces, many-body theory of nuclear models and analysis of scattering experiments. Interaction between nucleons and radiation, pion physics and weak interactions. Prerequisites: PHYS 6336, 6341.
7350. General Relativity. Einstein theory, black holes, gravitational waves and cosmology. Prerequisite: PHYS 6321 or permission of the instructor.
7360. Elementary Particles I. Physics of the standard model, quarks and leptons, internal symmetries and grand unified theories. Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor.
7361. Elementary Particles II. Continues 7360 with emphasis on current topics. Prerequisite: PHYS 7360 or permission of the instructor.
8100. Research.
8361, 8362, 8363. Special Topics in Physics.
8398, 8399. Dissertation.
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