PHYS 487 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Schedule
The table below shows the topics we will cover in the course. Exact dates may shift throughout the semester, depending on the progress of the course.
Last updated: Jan 15, 2026.
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The reading assignments are strongly recommended accompanying reading to the lectures. They refer to chaptes in Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 3rd Ed.
Lecture notes are available for download after each lecture (up to a day or two delay). They are provided as a help in looking back what was covered, not to replace reading, or taking your own notes during lecture. Please be aware that the lecture notes are not a substitute for the lecture; they are my personal notes for holding lecture, so I cannot give any guarantee for legibility, and they may contain mistakes.
Discussion notes can be found here.
| Week | Date | L. Topics | Reading | Discussion | Homework |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1/20 | Introduction and review | up to 5.2 | HW1 (due 1/27) |
|
| 1/22 | Transformations (Lecture content) |
6.1, 6.2 | |||
| 2 | 1/27 | Symmetry and conservation laws (Lecture content) |
6.3 - 6.5 | Discussion 1 | HW2 (due 2/3) |
| 1/29 | Degeneracy; Time translations | 6.6, 6.8 | |||
| 3 | 2/3 | Free electron gas and band structure | 5.3.1-2 | Discussion 2 | HW3 (due 2/10) |
| 2/5 | Free electron gas and band structure | 5.3.1-2 | |||
| 4 | 2/10 | Time-independent perturbation thy. | 7.1 | Discussion 3 | HW4 (due 2/17) |
| 2/12 | Degenerate perturbation thy. | 7.2 | |||
| 5 | 2/17 | Hydrogen fine-structure | 7.3 | Discussion 4 | |
| 2/19 | Addition of angular momentum | 4.4.3, 5.1 | |||
| 6 | 2/24 | Q&A session; no lecture | HW5 (due 3/3) |
||
| 2/26 | MT 1 (In-class) | ||||
| 7 | 3/3 | Addition of angular momentum | 4.4.3, 5.1 | Discussion 5 | HW6 (due 3/10) |
| 3/5 | Zeeman effect | 7.4 | |||
| 8 | 3/10 | Variational principle | 8.1, 8.2 | Discussion 6 | HW7 (due 3/24) |
| 3/12 | Variational principle | 8.3, 8.4 | |||
| Spring break: 3/14 - 3/22 | |||||
| 9 | 3/24 | Time-dependent perturbation thy. | 11.1 | Discussion 7 | HW8 (due 3/31) |
| 3/26 | The Rabi model | ||||
| 10 | 3/31 | Q&A session; no lecture | |||
| 4/2 | MT 2 (In-class) | ||||
| 11 | 4/7 | Emission and absorption of radiation | 11.2 | Discussion 8 | HW9 (due 4/14) |
| 4/9 | Spontaneous emission and Fermi's golden rule | 11.3, 11.4 | |||
| 12 | 4/14 | Adiabatic theorem | 11.5 | Discussion 9 | HW10 (due 4/21) |
| 4/16 | Coupling to EM fields and the geometric phase | ||||
| 13 | 4/21 | Quantum information | Discussion 10 | HW11 (due 4/28) |
|
| 4/23 | Quantum information | ||||
| 14 | 4/28 | TBD | Discussion 11 | HW12 (due 5/5) | |
| 4/30 | TBD | ||||
| 15 | 5/5 | Overview: "Frontiers in quantum (information) science" | |||
| 5/7 | Reading day | ||||
| FINAL: TBD | |||||