A Student's Guide to the Schroedinger Equation

Description

Quantum mechanics is a hugely important topic in science and engineering, but many students struggle to understand the abstract mathematical techniques used to solve the Schroedinger equation and to analyze the resulting wave functions. Retaining the popular approach used in Fleisch's other Student's Guides, this friendly resource uses plain language to provide detailed explanations of the fundamental concepts and mathematical techniques underlying the Schroedinger equation in quantum mechanics. It addresses in a clear and intuitive way the problems students find most troublesome. Each chapter includes several homework problems with fully worked solutions. A companion website hosts additional resources, including a helpful glossary, Matlab code for creating key simulations, revision quizzes and a series of videos in which the author explains the most important concepts from each section of the book.

Daniel A. Fleisch is Emeritus Professor of Physics at Wittenberg University, where he specializes in electromagnetics and space physics. He is the author of four other books published by Cambridge University Press: A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations (2008); A Student's Guide to Vectors and Tensors (2011); A Student's Guide to the Mathematics of Astronomy (2013) and A Student's Guide to Waves (2015).

'... this slender paperback attempts to explicate the somewhat difficult concepts involved in understanding the meaning of the equation. The author intends that the guide serve as an ancillary resource to any of the many textbooks on quantum mechanics. The difficulties associated with this subject arise from the demanding mathematical formalism required and the conceptualization of the solutions to Schro dinger's equation. The book succeeds in explicating the arcane forms used for writing and solving Schro dinger's equation, from operators to matrices to Dirac notations ... All discussions are related to a single dimension of space and the time-independent equation. Each chapter includes problems and features many helpful diagrams. Additional features are available to students on the supporting website, including complete solutions to problems and simulations. The book can serve, as intended, as an excellent supplement to a standard text.' N. Sadanand, Choice 'This book opens with the mathematics of quantum mechanics. The sense of familiarity makes it a good companion to lecture notes. More importantly, it meticulously explains everything the readers need to know about the fundamentals there is a good discussion on Fourier analysis ... it is written for advanced undergraduates, readers with half remembered memories of quantum mechanics, who are still curious about the Schroedinger equation, might appreciate this book as well.' B. Ishak, Contemporary Physics