Fundamentals of Quantum Physics (eBook)

Professor Pedro Pereyra P. was born in Bolivia and works at the Department of Basic Sciences of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (campus Azcapotzalco, Mexico), since 1978. Prof. Pereyra has taught in the order of 200 courses at undergraduate level with a great variety of subjects ranging from Mathematics and elementary Physics to advanced and specialized topics of current interest in Physics. His teaching experience has resulted in course notes and two textbooks. He co-authored and has been sole author of more that 60 research articles of theoretical and experimental physics in high impact journals and has served also as Referee of these journals. He has contributed in various areas of physics, among these, in the Theory of Nuclear Reactions, Theory of Two-Quantum Level Systems, High Temperature Superconductivity, Theory of Finite Periodic Systems and in the elusive and fundamental theme of "Tunneling Time". He advised over 30 engineering physics, M. in Sc. and Ph.D. thesis students. He has organized, equipped and put into operation the Laboratory of Experimental Research in High Temperature Superconductivity. Along with other professors of the Department of Basic Sciences and some alumni, formed a research group which, in 2001, became the Area of Theoretical Physics and Condensed Matter (FTMC), and has been its first Head of Area. In the period 89-91 was Assistant Secretary of the Mexican Society of Physics and, from 1991 to 1993, Associate Editor of the The Mexican Journal of Physics (Revista Mexicana de Fisica). He has been member and President of the Judging Committee for Basic Sciences of the Autonomous Metropolitan University. Professor and Visiting Professor at several universities in South America, the Caribbean, U.S. and Europe Since 1987, a member of the National Researchers System, Mexico. He has received 3 times the UAM Award for Scientific Research and in 2006 was honored Distinguished Professor of the Autonomous Metropolitan University. From 1994 to 2006 has been Regular Associate and Senior Associate of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics "Abdus Salam" Trieste, Italy. In 2004 was Chairman of the International Conference on Superlattices, Nanostructures and Nanodevices (ICSNN) and Guest Editor of Physica Status Solidi. Currently a member of the Program and the Steering Committees of the ICSNN.Among his achievements as a researcher highlight the doctoral thesis, which definitively solved the problem of nuclear reactions with formation of compound nucleus, a solution that several groups around the world eagerly sought. His postdoctoral stay was at the Max-Planck Institut für Kernphysik Heidelberg, Germany. Together with Pier Mello and Narendra Kumar published in the Annals of Physics an article entitled "macroscopic approach to multichannel disordered conductors." This work with over 300 citations in research journals, books and theses, has been seminal in the physics of mesoscopic systems, quantum wires, resonant cavities, etc. The main result of this work is known as the DMPK equation, the initials of the authors and Dr. Dorokhov. He has published in Physical Review Letters, two transcendent articles, "Resonant tunneling and band mixing in multichannel superlattices" and "Closed formulas for tunneling time in superlattices." The first is a new formulation, more accurate and appropriate for the description of finite periodic systems, and the second is the first theoretical demonstration of the relevance of the phase time in explaining the superluminal speeds. This article shows that the theory of finite periodic systems, applied to the description of the transit time of particles and waves through superlattices, describes the experimental results with an accuracy of 10-16s. His publications have received about 1000 citations.

From the contents: The origin of the quantum concepts.- Problems.- Diffraction, duality and the Schroedinger equations.- Illustrative problems.- Problems.- Properties of the stationary Schroedinger equation.- Illustrative problems.- Problems.- Tunneling effect and other quantum phenomena.- Problems.- Quantum coherence and energy bands.- Problems.- The WKB approximation.- Problems.-  Operators and dynamical variables.- Problems.- The harmonic oscillator.- Problems.- Angular momentum and central potentials.