Introductory Quantum Mechanics

This text and the accompanying computer programmes have grown out of an introductory course in quantum mechanics to the author's second-year undergraduates at the University of York. It was intended from the outset that the book would include all the essentials of an introductory course in quantum mechanics and that it would be illustrated wherever appropriate with the aid of computer programmes. The computer aspect has influenced the content only in that one or two topics have been included which are more usually to be found in more advanced courses. Thus the partial-wave treatment of scattering is included. This lends itself to illustration by means of computer programmes and is readily accessible at the level of the rest of the book. The essential mathematical prerequisites are mechanics, differential and integral calculus, complex numbers, vectors and matrices. Much of the book is concerned with the solution of partial equations but the methods used are explained as required. Undoubtedly some familiarity with Fourier series and transforms will be of considerable aid in comprehension, but very little direct use is made of them. It is assumed that students will have already studied introductory modern physis, so only a brief chapter covering the absolute essential preliminaries is included. Then follows a chapter on the backbone of the entire book, Schrodinger's equation. Here and elsewhere the author tries to make clear what is postulated and what follows logically. Despite their mathematical complexity, the author felt the necessity to include here a brief description of wave-packets, because they provide a far better link with everyday experience that stationary states. Some material is included here, on probability flux, which some may prefer to skip on a first reading, and return to when the chapters on scattering are tackled.