Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
- Preface
- Table of units and physical constants
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The mathematics of quantum mechanics I: finite dimension
- 3 Polarization: photons and spin-1/2 particles
- 4 Postulates of quantum physics
- 5 Systems with a finite number of levels
- 6 Entangled states
- 7 Mathematics of quantum mechanics II: infinite dimension
- 8 Symmetries in quantum physics
- 9 Wave mechanics
- 10 Angular momentum
- 11 The harmonic oscillator
- 12 Elementary scattering theory
- 13 Identical particles
- 14 Atomic physics
- 15 Open quantum systems
- Appendix A The Wigner theorem and time reversal
- Appendix B Measurement and decoherence
- Appendix C The Wigner–Weisskopf method
- References
- Index
14 - Atomic physics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
- Preface
- Table of units and physical constants
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The mathematics of quantum mechanics I: finite dimension
- 3 Polarization: photons and spin-1/2 particles
- 4 Postulates of quantum physics
- 5 Systems with a finite number of levels
- 6 Entangled states
- 7 Mathematics of quantum mechanics II: infinite dimension
- 8 Symmetries in quantum physics
- 9 Wave mechanics
- 10 Angular momentum
- 11 The harmonic oscillator
- 12 Elementary scattering theory
- 13 Identical particles
- 14 Atomic physics
- 15 Open quantum systems
- Appendix A The Wigner theorem and time reversal
- Appendix B Measurement and decoherence
- Appendix C The Wigner–Weisskopf method
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter is devoted to an introduction to atomic physics which will be mainly concerned with one-electron atoms. After a brief discussion of the perturbation and variational methods in Section 14.1, in Section 14.2 we study the fine and hyperfine structure of the energy levels as well as the effect of a magnetic field on these levels. In Section 14.3 we examine the coupling of an atom to an electromagnetic field and important applications of this coupling such as the photoelectric effect and the rate of spontaneous emission. In Section 14.4 we give a brief introduction to a subject which has been expanding enormously in the last twenty years, the laser manipulation of atoms, and we discuss Doppler cooling and magneto-optical traps. Finally, Section 14.5 is devoted to a short discussion of two-electron atoms.
Approximation methods
Generalities
In classical physics it is only in exceptional cases that it is possible to solve the Newton or Maxwell equations analytically given the initial conditions at time t = t0 and, in the first case, the forces, or, in the second, the sources of electromagnetic field. In general, it is necessary to resort to an approximation method such as numerical integration of the equations, the perturbation method, or something else. The situation is no different in quantum physics: only in exceptional cases do we know how to “solve the Schrödinger equation” exactly, that is, how to obtain the time evolution of the state vector |ϕ(t〉 as a function of its value |ϕ(t0〉 at initial time t = t0.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Quantum Physics , pp. 455 - 506Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006