Quantum Mechanics

Jean-Louis Basdevant is Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics at the Ecole Polytechnique, and Director of Research for the CNRS.

Quantum Phenomena.- The Wave Function and the Schrödinger Equation.- Physical Quantities and Measurements.- Quantization of Energy in Simple Systems.- Principles of Quantum Mechanics.- Two-State Systems, Principle of the Maser.- Commutation of Observables.- The Stern-Gerlach Experiment.- Approximation Methods.- Angular Momentum.- Initial Description of Atoms.- Spin 1/2 and Magnetic Resonance.- Addition of Angular Momenta, Fine and Hyperfine Structure of Atomic Spectra.- Entangled States, EPR Paradox and Bell's Inequality.- The Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Formalisms, Lorentz Force in Quantum Mechanics.- Identical Particles and the Pauli Principle.- The Evolution of Systems.- Scattering Processes.- Qualitative Physics on a Macroscopic Scale.- Early History of Quantum Mechanics.

From the reviews of the first edition:

"This textbook on quantum mechanics is the corrected second printing of the book, that first appeared in 2002. ... Great attention is paid to give some intuition of the phenomena ... . Connection to recent experiments and topics, objects of new research developments, as well as to the historical aspects, is made whenever possible. Also each chapter ends with a nice bibliography ... together with very interesting exercises ... . " (Bassano Vacchini, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1087, 2006)