Università Roma Tre

The crisis of the classical physics
- Black body radiation
- Planck's formula
- The photoelectric effect
- The Compton effect
- Rutherford's atomic model
- Bohr's quantum theory
- De Broglie's waves

Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics
- Basic probability theory
- Schroedinger equation and wave function
- Probabilistic interpretation of the wave function
- Measurement problem and collapse of the wave function
- Stern-Gerlach and Young’s experiments
- Physical quantities and operators
- Eigenvalues and eigenfunctions
- Stationary states
- Principle of superposition
- Uncertainty principle

Applications to unidimensional problems
- The potential well
- The harmonic oscillator
- The potential barrier and tunnel effect

Several-particles systems
- Identical particles: Fermi–Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics
- classical limit and Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics
- Electrons in a crystal: Bloch's theorem
- Quantum entanglement
- EPR paradox and Bell’s theorem
- Fundamentals of qubits and quantum computation

1) D. J. Griffith, "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics"

- Preliminaries: Dirac delta function, Fourier transform, convolution, linear systems, Bessel functions
- Wave equation, harmonic waves, Helmholtz equation, plane waves
- From Maxwell equations to e.m. waves, plane e.m. waves, Poynting vector, power and momentum, intensity, polarization
- Propagation and interference of plane waves, superpositions of plane waves
- Diffraction, plane-wave expansion of a light field
- Diffraction-free beams
- Rayleigh-Sommerfeld formula, Huygens-Fresnel principle, Fresnel integral, paraxial wave equation
- Far-field approximation
- Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction from rectangular slit, circular hole, opaque disc
- Effects on propagation of thin lenses and spherical mirrors
- Diffraction by gratings
- Diffractive Optical Elements: beam multipliers, Damman gratings, phase discretization, circular gratings
- Electromagnetic theory of gratings
- Gaussian beams of zero and higher order
- Focusing, collimating and expanding Gaussian beams
- Uncertainty principle and M2 factor
- Principles of holography, computer-generated holograms
- Introduction to the coherence theory, coherence function, degrees of coherence, van Citter-Zernike and Wiener-Kintchine theorems

- P. Mazzoldi, M. Nigro, C. Voci, “Elementi di Fisica – Elettromagnetismo e Onde”, II edizione, EdiSES (2008)
- F. Gori, Elementi di Ottica, ed. Accademica
- Notes provided by the teacher