Graduate Core Courses

Graduate Core Courses required of all Ph.D. students.

5180 Graduate Physics Colloquium
Prerequisite(s): Enrollment in graduate program.
Students are required to register for the weekly colloquium and to present papers. No more than three semester hours may be counted on a master's degree and no more than six may be counted on the Ph.D. degree. (1-0)

5320 Classical Mechanics I
Elementary mechanics, variational principles, Lagrange's equations, two-body central forces, scattering, kinematics, rotations, rigid body motion, and Hamilton's equations of motion; special relativity, including covariant Lagrangian formulation

5330 Electromagnetic Theory I
Prerequisite(s): PHY 4322 and 5360 (concurrently).
Advanced electrostatics and magnetostatics, boundary-value problems, time-varying fields, conservation laws, plane electromagnetic waves, wave guides and resonant cavities, and simple radiating systems and diffraction. (3-0)

5331 Electromagnetic Theory II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5330.
Magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics, advanced relativistic electrodynamics, collisions of charged particles, scattering, Lienard-Wiechert potentials and radiation by moving charges, Bremsstrahlung, the method of virtual quanta, dynamic multipole fields, radiation damping, self-fields of a particle, and scattering and absorption by a bound system. (3-0)

5340 Statistical Mechanics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 4340 and credit or concurrent registration in PHY 5360.
Probability, statistical methods, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, postulates, ensembles, ideal systems, real gases, cluster expansions, liquid helium, and phase transitions. (3-0)

5360 Mathematical Physics I
Prerequisite(s): MTH 2321 and 3325.
Theory of analytical functions, Laplace and Fourier transforms, Fourier series, theory of distributions, ordinary differential equations, eigenvalue problems, special functions defined by eigenvalue problems, Green functions, partial differential equations, radiation problems and scattering problems. (3-0)

5370 Quantum Mechanics I
Schrodinger equation, eigenfunctions and eigenvalues, harmonic oscillator, and hydrogen atom. WKB approximation, collision theory, matrix formulation of quantum mechanics, transformation theory, and representation theory, including Schrodinger and Heisenberg picture. (3-0)

5371 Quantum Mechanics II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5370.
Angular momentum algebra, Pauli Principle, many-particle systems, conservation laws, symmetry principles, time-dependent approximation methods, time-independent approximation methods, atoms, molecules, and relativistic wave equations. (3-0)