Looking for intro to AMO book recommendations

[OMG_Physics]

Hello all. I am looking for a good book to bridge the gap between my undergraduate quantum mechanics and AMO specific topics. For my undergraduate quantum work I read through Griffiths, first volume of Cohen-Tannoujdi, and Shankar.

I asked a couple of my professors and they recommended Theoretical Atomic Physics by H. Friedrich. Although the book does start off with something of a review it doesn't go into much detail on things I don't have experience with. For example resonance and channels are very important, but I have no idea how they relate if at all. I try to push through but eventually there are too many concepts I know too little about and I'm left defeated.

My overall goal would be to learn more about RABBITT spectroscopy if that helps direct things at all.

Is there a book or books that would fit in between?

Thanks so much for any help.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Two questions:
1. What is "AMO"?
2. I've heard and read about UV Spectroscopy, Infrared Spectroscopy, Mass Spectroscopy, NMR Spectroscopy, and others, but never about RABBITT spectroscopy. Google seems to tell me it's the spectroscopy of a rabbit (). Can you provide a short info on what that is?

 

[OMG_Physics]

Hi Wrichik Basu,

AMO = Atomic, Molecular and Optical physics
Wikipedia Link

RABBITT = Reconstruction of Attosecond Beating. By Interference of Two-photon Transitions
not really sure what a quick link for this is.

Thanks for the quick response.

 

[vanhees71]

For Quantum Optics, I'd recommend the book

M. O. Scully, M. S. Zubairy, quantum Optics, Cam. Uni. Press (1997)

I think that's very much suited for precisely the purpose of the OP, i.e., to study further with the introductory (nonrelativistic) QM as background. It also carefully discusses all levels of approximations, i.e., also the semiclassical description (em. field classical, "matter" quantized) as well as the full quantum description (both em. field and matter quantized).

Yesterday, I've looked also into

D. F. Walls, G. J. Milburn, Quantum Optics, Springer (2008)

At the first glance, this one I personally like a bit more than the usual ones, because right away they start from the full quantum theory and very much emphasizes the specifically quantum features of light. Maybe, that's better for a second read on the subject than to start right away with it.

So, I'd recommend to first study a more traditional book like Scully and Zubairy and then read Walls and Milburn. Of course there are tons of other very good books on the subject, including one by Cohen-Tanoudji.

 

[OMG_Physics]

Thank for the reply!

I finally got the book from my university library. I’ve gone through the table of contents and skimmed a couple chapters.

So far this seems almost about optics (hence the title) which is great but I’m would like to learn more about the spectroscopy specifically.

For example, I want to know how to compute/predict the photo ionization spectrum when there is a time delay between two laser pulses intereacting with my system. The RABBITT technique is of particular interest.

Is the technique or fundamentals in the Quantum Optics book somewhere?

I’m sure this has to be written down somewhere but maybe I should ask this in another section?

Thanks for you help.

 

[Dr Transport]

Cohen-Tannoidji's books, although I do not care for the style they are written in, they can be learned from.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471293369/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[vanhees71]

Ok, so you are more interested in the atomic-physics side. I'm not an expert in modern atomic physics, but a good (despite the fact that he uses a naive 1st-quantization interpretation of the Dirac equation instead of QFT for the relativistic case, but you can go with this for atoms since the typical energy scales are not too large compared to the electron mass, at least for not too heavy atoms) standard texbook is

H. Friedrich, Theoretical Atomic Physics, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (2006)

 

[jim mcnamara]

@vanhees71 - it would seem the OP has tried that text and had problems. His background will not support reading through it. Why is not clear to me, but that is what was indicated

 

[vanhees71]

Ah, well, I've forgotten this. It was mentioned in #1, indeed. Perhaps, then it's better to first start with an introductory QM textbook. My favorite for this purpose is J. J. Sakurai, Modern Quantum Mechanics, Revised edition (edited by Tuan, not the one by Napolitano, which is called the 2nd edition, because it has a chapter about relativsitic QM, which I'd avoid).