Non-Relativistic QED Textbook Reference - Zag

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zag
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Qed
Zag
Messages
49
Reaction score
9
Hello everyone,

I was hoping to ask you for a good textbook reference on the subject of Non-Relativistic QED.

I am attending a graduate course which is now covering this topic, but the adopted textbook (G. Baym - Lectures in Quantum Mechanics) is just extremely unsatisfactory! I also tried looking at the content of the classic textbooks for Quantum Mechanics, but apparently when it comes to this branch of the subject very few books provide a thorough treatment.

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated! :)

Thank you very much!
Zag
 
Physics news on Phys.org
There are very many books that treat this topic but not all of them are very good. Here is the list of sources I think are worth a look, roughly with increasing difficulty:

You will surely use with advantage this very good book:

Heald,Marion: Classical Electromagnetic Radiation, 3rd edition, Saunders College Pub., 1995

It is a classical theory of radiation with topics that are nice to understand before delving into the quantum theory of radiation.

Great introduction to quantum theory of radiation is contained in the chapter 6. of a great book
John Slater: Quantum Theory of Atomic Structure, McGraw-Hill 1960;
If you can't get this one, similar text is also John Slater: Quantum Theory of Matter.

Very nice book : (do not be scared away by the title, it is theoretical physics):
Alan Corney: Atomic and Laser Spectroscopy, Oxford University Press, 1977 (2005)

The following two books I am not too fond of, but they provide useful reference.

Brief, easy and readable exposition of non-relativistic QT of radiation is in the book

Craig, Thirunamachandran: Molecular Quantum Electrodynamics, Academic Press, 1984

but its level is rather basic.

Quick reference for basic and most common calculations using QT of radiation:
Sakurai: Advanced quantum mechanics, Addison Wesley (1967)


More advanced and still very readable is

Compagno, Passante, Persico: Atom-Field Interactions and Dressed Atoms, Cambridge Univ. Press 1995


Terse with some gaps but still very juicy and interesting are parts on non-relativistic QT in
Steven Weinberg:Lectures on Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press 2013, Chap. 9,10,11

Interesting advanced stuff but kind of messy:
Millonni P. W.:The Quantum Vacuum An Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics, Academic Press, 1994

Beware the theory is not really satisfactory since it uses the idea of point particles with poynting expressions for energy and momentum, which is a logical inconsistency, leads to infinities which is a serious problem. Nevertheless there is a lot to be learned from these books.
 
  • Like
Likes 1 person
Thank you very much Jano L. I will certainly look into these references!
 
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. In her YouTube video Bell’s Theorem Experiments on Entangled Photons, Dr. Fugate shows how polarization-entangled photons violate Bell’s inequality. In this Insight, I will use quantum information theory to explain why such entangled photon-polarization qubits violate the version of Bell’s inequality due to John Clauser, Michael Horne, Abner Shimony, and Richard Holt known as the...
Not an expert in QM. AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is quite different from the classical wave equation. The former is an equation for the dynamics of the state of a (quantum?) system, the latter is an equation for the dynamics of a (classical) degree of freedom. As a matter of fact, Schrödinger's equation is first order in time derivatives, while the classical wave equation is second order. But, AFAIK, Schrödinger's equation is a wave equation; only its interpretation makes it non-classical...
I asked a question related to a table levitating but I am going to try to be specific about my question after one of the forum mentors stated I should make my question more specific (although I'm still not sure why one couldn't have asked if a table levitating is possible according to physics). Specifically, I am interested in knowing how much justification we have for an extreme low probability thermal fluctuation that results in a "miraculous" event compared to, say, a dice roll. Does a...

Similar threads

Replies
6
Views
2K
Replies
87
Views
8K
Replies
185
Views
19K
Replies
3
Views
2K
Replies
5
Views
3K
Replies
2
Views
2K
Replies
6
Views
7K
Back
Top