Group Theory With Applications In Chemical Physics

This book provides a rigorous account on the fundamentals and applications of Group Theory to chemical physics.

Retains the easy-to-read format and informal flavor of the previous editions, and includes new material on the symmetric properties of extended arrays (crystals), projection operators, LCAO molecular orbitals, and electron counting rules. Also contains many new exercises and illustrations.

Concise, self-contained introduction to group theory and its applications to chemical problems. Symmetry, matrices, molecular vibrations, transition metal chemistry, more. Relevant math included. Advanced-undergraduate/graduate-level. 1973 edition.

Symmetry: An Introduction to Group Theory and its Application is an eight-chapter text that covers the fundamental bases, the development of the theoretical and experimental aspects of the group theory. Chapter 1 deals with the elementary concepts and definitions, while Chapter 2 provides the necessary theory of vector spaces. Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to an opportunity of actually working with groups and representations until the ideas already introduced are fully assimilated. Chapter 5 looks into the more formal theory of irreducible representations, while Chapter 6 is concerned largely with quadratic forms, illustrated by applications to crystal properties and to molecular vibrations. Chapter 7 surveys the symmetry properties of functions, with special emphasis on the eigenvalue equation in quantum mechanics. Chapter 8 covers more advanced applications, including the detailed analysis of tensor properties and tensor operators. This book is of great value to mathematicians, and math teachers and students.

One of the best-written, most skillful expositions of group theory and its physical applications, directed primarily to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics, especially quantum physics. With problems.

This book has been written to introduce readers to group theory and its ap plications in atomic physics, molecular physics, and solid-state physics. The first Japanese edition was published in 1976. The present English edi tion has been translated by the authors from the revised and enlarged edition of 1980. In translation, slight modifications have been made in. Chaps. 8 and 14 to update and condense the contents, together with some minor additions and improvements throughout the volume. The authors cordially thank Professor J. L. Birman and Professor M. Car dona, who encouraged them to prepare the English translation. Tokyo, January 1990 T. Inui . Y. Tanabe Y. Onodera Preface to the Japanese Edition As the title shows, this book has been prepared as a textbook to introduce readers to the applications of group theory in several fields of physics. Group theory is, in a nutshell, the mathematics of symmetry. It has three main areas of application in modern physics. The first originates from early studies of crystal morphology and constitutes a framework for classical crystal physics. The analysis of the symmetry of tensors representing macroscopic physical properties (such as elastic constants) belongs to this category. The sec ond area was enunciated by E. Wigner (1926) as a powerful means of handling quantum-mechanical problems and was first applied in this sense to the analysis of atomic spectra. Soon, H.

The past decade has seen a renewal in the close ties between mathematics and physics. The Chicago Summer Seminar on Applications of Group Theory in Physics and Mathematical Physics, held in July, 1982, was organized to bring together a broad spectrum of scientists from theoretical physics, mathematical physics, and various branches of pure and applied mathematics in order to promote interaction and an exchange of ideas and results in areas of common interest. This volume contains the papers submitted by speakers at the Seminar. The reader will find several groups of articles varying from the most abstract aspects of mathematics to a concrete phenomenological description of some models applicable to particle physics. The papers have been divided into four categories corresponding to the principal topics covered at the Seminar. This is only a rough division, and some papers overlap two or more of these categories.

Retains the easy-to-read format and informal flavor of the previous editions, and includes new material on the symmetric properties of extended arrays (crystals), projection operators, LCAO molecular orbitals, and electron counting rules. Also contains many new exercises and illustrations.