Quantum Physics A First Encounter

Quantum physics is often perceived as a weird and abstract theory, which physicists must use in order to make correct predictions. But many recent experiments have shown that the weirdness of the theory simply mirrors the weirdness of phenomena: it is Nature itself, and not only our description of it, that behaves in an astonishing way. This book selects those, among these typical quantum phenomena, whose rigorous description requires neither the formalism, nor an important background in physics. The first part of the book deals with the phenomenon of single-particle interference, covering the historical questions of wave-particle duality, objective randomness and the boundary between the quantum and the classical world, but also the recent idea of quantum cryptography. The second part introduces the modern theme of entanglement, by presenting two-particle interference phenomena and discussing Bell's inequalities. A concise review of the main interpretations of quantum physics is provided.

In this undergraduate textbook, now in its 2nd edition, the author develops the quantum theory from first principles based on very simple experiments: a photon traveling through beam splitters to detectors, an electron moving through magnetic fields, and an atom emitting radiation. From the physical description of these experiments follows a natural mathematical description in terms of matrices and complex numbers. The first part of the book examines how experimental facts force us to let go of some deeply held preconceptions and develops this idea into a description of states, probabilities, observables, and time evolution. The quantum mechanical principles are illustrated using applications such as gravitational wave detection, magnetic resonance imaging, atomic clocks, scanning tunneling microscopy, and many more. The first part concludes with an overview of the complete quantum theory. The second part of the book covers more advanced topics, including the concept of entanglement, the process of decoherence or how quantum systems become classical, quantum computing and quantum communication, and quantum particles moving in space. Here, the book makes contact with more traditional approaches to quantum physics. The remaining chapters delve deeply into the idea of uncertainty relations and explore what the quantum theory says about the nature of reality. The book is an ideal accessible introduction to quantum physics, tested in the classroom, with modern examples and plenty of end-of-chapter exercises.

This account of the foundations of quantum mechanics is an introduction accessible to anyone with high school mathematics, and provides a rigorous discussion of important recent advances in the understanding of quantum physics, including theories put forward by the author himself.

Quantum phenomena are explained through the language of diagrams, setting out an innovative visual method of presenting complex scientific theories. Focusing on physical intuition over mathematical formalism, and packed with exercises, this unique book is accessible to students and researchers across scientific disciplines, from undergraduate to Ph.D. level.

In this ground-breaking work the authors show how quantum properties are being observed in larger and larger objects and argue that explanations about quantum physics may lie in the field cognitive neuro-science.

"A Prelude to Quantum Field Theory offers a short introduction to quantum field theory (QFT), a powerful framework for understanding particle behavior that is an essential tool across many subfields of physics. A subject that is typically taught at the graduate level in most physics departments, quantum field theory is a unification of standard quantum theories and special relativity, which depicts all particles as "excitations" that arise in underlying fields. It extends quantum mechanics, the modern theory of one or few particles, in a way that is useful for the analysis of many-particle systems in the real world. As it requires a different style of thinking from quantum mechanics, which is typically the undergraduate physics student's first encounter with the quantum world, many beginners struggle with the transition to quantum field theory, especially when working with traditional textbooks. Existing books on the subject often tend to be large, sophisticated, and complete; and an overwhelming wealth of information and technical detail makes it difficult for the novice to discern what is most important. This book is a concise, friendly entrée for QFT-beginners, guiding the reader from the style of quantum mechanical thinking to that of QFT, and distilling the key ideas without a welter of unnecessary detail. In contrast with standard texts, which are predominantly particle physics-centric, this book is designed to be "subfield-neutral" - usable by students of any background and interest, and easily adaptable in a course setting according to instructors' preferences. The authors' conviction is that QFT is a core element of physics that should be understood by all PhD physicists-but that developing an appreciation for it does not require digesting a large, encyclopedic volume"--

We may have lived knowing that the world around us operates in a way as if we observe them to be. This knowledge of how the universe operates, based primarily of our observations, has enabled us to predict actions and motions and allowed us to build machines and equipments that have made our lives easier and more enjoyable. The field that allowed us to do that is classical physics. The world, however, is advancing and our knowledge of how things are expands over time. We have discovered in the last few decades that these sets of rules that we have devised can perfectly describe the large-scale world but cannot accurately define the behaviors of particles in the microscopic world. This necessitated another field to explain the different behavior in the microscopic world: quantum physics.

Presenting a variety of topics that are only briefly touched on in other texts, this book provides a thorough introduction to the techniques of field theory. Covering Feynman diagrams and path integrals, the author emphasizes the path integral approach, the Wilsonian approach to renormalization, and the physics of non-abelian gauge theory. It provides a thorough treatment of quark confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, topics not usually covered in other texts at this level. The Standard Model of particle physics is discussed in detail. Connections with condensed matter physics are explored, and there is a brief, but detailed, treatment of non-perturbative semi-classical methods. Ideal for graduate students in high energy physics and condensed matter physics, the book contains many problems,which help students practise the key techniques of quantum field theory.