The introduction of control theory in quantum mechanics has created a rich, new interdisciplinary scientific field, which is producing novel insight into important theoretical questions at the heart of quantum physics. Exploring this emerging subject, Introduction to Quantum Control and Dynamics presents the mathematical concepts and fundamental physics behind the analysis and control of quantum dynamics, emphasizing the application of Lie algebra and Lie group theory. To advantage students, instructors and practitioners, and since the field is highly interdisciplinary, this book presents an introduction with all the basic notions in the same place. The field has seen a large development in parallel with the neighboring fields of quantum information, computation and communication. The author has maintained an introductory level to encourage course use. After introducing the basics of quantum mechanics, the book derives a class of models for quantum control systems from fundamental physics. It examines the controllability and observability of quantum systems and the related problem of quantum state determination and measurement. The author also uses Lie group decompositions as tools to analyze dynamics and to design control algorithms. In addition, he describes various other control methods and discusses topics in quantum information theory that include entanglement and entanglement dynamics. Changes to the New Edition: New Chapter 4: Uncontrollable Systems and Dynamical Decomposition New section on quantum control landscapes A brief discussion of the experiments that earned the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics Corrections and revised concepts are made to improve accuracy Armed with the basics of quantum control and dynamics, readers will invariably use this interdisciplinary knowledge in their mathematics, physics and engineering work.

This comprehensive textbook provides the fundamental concepts and methods of dissipative quantum mechanics and related issues in condensed matter physics starting from first principles. It deals with the phenomena and theory of decoherence, relaxation and dissipation in quantum mechanics that arise from the random exchange of energy with the environment. Major theoretical advances in combination with stunning experimental achievements and the arising perspective for quantum computing have brightened the field and brought it to the attention of the general community in natural sciences. Expertise in dissipative quantum mechanics is by now beneficial in a broad sphere.This book - originally published in 1992 and republished as enlarged and updated second, third and fourth edition in 1999, 2008, and 2012 - dives even deeper into the fundamental concepts, methods and applications of quantum dissipation. The fifth edition provides a self-contained and updated account of the quantum mechanics and quantum statistics of open systems. The subject matter of the book has been thoroughly revised to better comply with the needs of newcomers and the demands of the advanced readership. Most of the chapters are rewritten to enhance clarity and topicality. Four new chapters covering recent developments in the field have been added. There are about 600 references. This book is intended for use by advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics, and for researchers active in the field. They will find the monograph as a rich and stimulating source.

This comprehensive textbook provides the fundamental concepts and methods of dissipative quantum mechanics and related issues in condensed matter physics starting from first principles. It deals with the phenomena and theory of decoherence, relaxation and dissipation in quantum mechanics that arise from the random exchange of energy with the environment. Major theoretical advances in combination with stunning experimental achievements and the arising perspective for quantum computing have brightened the field and brought it to the attention of the general community in natural sciences. Expertise in dissipative quantum mechanics is by now beneficial in a broad sphere.This book - originally published in 1992 and republished as enlarged and updated second, third and fourth edition in 1999, 2008, and 2012 - dives even deeper into the fundamental concepts, methods and applications of quantum dissipation. The fifth edition provides a self-contained and updated account of the quantum mechanics and quantum statistics of open systems. The subject matter of the book has been thoroughly revised to better comply with the needs of newcomers and the demands of the advanced readership. Most of the chapters are rewritten to enhance clarity and topicality. Four new chapters covering recent developments in the field have been added. There are about 600 references. This book is intended for use by advanced undergraduate and graduate students in physics, and for researchers active in the field. They will find the monograph as a rich and stimulating source.

This book takes a pedagogical approach to explaining quantum gravity, supersymmetry and string theory in a coherent way. It is aimed at graduate students and researchers in quantum field theory and high-energy physics. The first part of the book introduces quantum gravity, without requiring previous knowledge of general relativity (GR). The necessary geometrical aspects are derived afresh leading to explicit general Lagrangians for gravity, including that of general relativity. The quantum aspect of gravitation, as described by the graviton, is introduced and perturbative quantum GR is discussed. The Schwinger-DeWitt formalism is developed to compute the one-loop contribution to the theory and renormalizability aspects of the perturbative theory are also discussed. This follows by introducing only the very basics of a non-perturbative, background-independent, formulation of quantum gravity, referred to as "loop quantum gravity", which gives rise to a quantization of space. In the second part the author introduces supersymmetry and its consequences. The generation of superfields is represented in detail. Supersymmetric generalizations of Maxwell's Theory as well as of Yang-Mills field theory, and of the standard model are worked out. Spontaneous symmetry breaking, improvement of the divergence problem in supersymmetric field theory, and its role in the hierarchy problem are covered. The unification of the fundamental constants in a supersymmetric version of the standard model are then studied. Geometrical aspects necessary to study supergravity are developed culminating in the derivation of its full action. The third part introduces string theory and the analysis of the spectra of the mass (squared) operator associated with the oscillating strings. The properties of the underlying fields, associated with massless particles, encountered in string theory are studied in some detail. Elements of compactification, duality and D-branes are given, as well of the generation of vertices and interactions of strings. In the final sections, the author shows how to recover GR and the Yang-Mills field Theory from string theory.

Quantum physics provides the concepts and their mathematical formalization that lend themselves to describe important properties of biological networks topology, such as vulnerability to external stress and their dynamic response to changing physiological conditions. A theory of networks enhanced with mathematical concepts and tools of quantum physics opens a new area of biological physics, the one of systems biological physics.

This exposition is devoted to a consistent treatment of quantization problems, based on appealing to some nontrivial items of functional analysis concerning the theory of linear operators in Hilbert spaces. The authors begin by considering quantization problems in general, emphasizing the nontriviality of consistent operator construction by presenting paradoxes to the naive treatment. It then builds the necessary mathematical background following it by the theory of self-adjoint extensions. By considering several problems such as the one-dimensional Calogero problem, the Aharonov-Bohm problem, the problem of delta-like potentials and relativistic Coulomb problemIt then shows how quantization problems associated with correct definition of observables can be treated consistently for comparatively simple quantum-mechanical systems. In the end, related problems in quantum field theory are briefly introduced. This well-organized text is most suitable for students and post graduates interested in deepening their understanding of mathematical problems in quantum mechanics. However, scientists in mathematical and theoretical physics and mathematicians will also find it useful.

The first part of this book reviews some key topics on multi-variable advanced calculus. The approach presented includes detailed and rigorous studies on surfaces in Rn which comprises items such as differential forms and an abstract version of the Stokes Theorem in Rn. The conclusion section introduces readers to Riemannian geometry, which is used in the subsequent chapters. The second part reviews applications, specifically in variational quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Topics such as a variational formulation for the relativistic Klein-Gordon equation, the derivation of a variational formulation for relativistic mechanics firstly through (semi)-Riemannian geometry are covered. The second part has a more general context. It includes fundamentals of differential geometry. The later chapters describe a new interpretation for the Bohr atomic model through a semi-classical approach. The book concludes with a classical description of the radiating cavity model in quantum mechanics.

Device-independent quantum cryptography is a method for exchanging secret messages over potentially insecure quantum communication channels, such as optical fibers. In contrast to conventional quantum cryptography, security is guaranteed even if the devices used by the communication partners, such as photon sources and detectors, deviate from their theoretical specifications. This is of high practical relevance, for attacks to current implementations of quantum cryptography exploit exactly such deviations. Device-independent cryptography is however technologically so demanding that it looked as if experimental realizations are out of reach. In her thesis, Rotem Arnon-Friedman presents powerful information-theoretic methods to prove the security of device-independent quantum cryptography. Based on them, she is able to establish security in a parameter regime that may be experimentally achievable in the near future. Rotem Arnon-Friedman's thesis thus provides the theoretical foundations for an experimental demonstration of device-independent quantum cryptography.

With contributions by leading theoreticians, this book presents the discoveries of hitherto hidden connections between seemingly unrelated fields of fundamental physics. The topics range from cosmology and astrophysics to nuclear-, particle- and heavy-ion science. A current example concerns the sensitivity of gravitational wave spectra to the phase structure of dense nuclear and quark matter in binary neutron star collisions. The contributions by Hanauske and Stoecker as well as Banik and Bandyopadhyay relate the consequent insights to hot dense nuclear matter created in supernova explosions and in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Studies of the equation of state for neutron stars are also presented, as are those for nuclear matter in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Other reviews focus on QCD-thermodynamics, charmed mesons in the quark-gluon plasma, nuclear theory, extensions to the standard general theory of relativity, new experimental developments in heavy ion collisions and renewable energy networks. The book will appeal to advanced students and researchers seeking a broad view of current challenges in theoretical physics and their interconnections.

Focusing on spectroscopic properties of molecular systems, Quantum Modeling of Molecular Materials presents the state-of-the-art methods in theoretical chemistry that are used to determine molecular properties relevant to different spectroscopies. This timely reference gives a basic presentation of response theory and its application to the simulation of spectroscopic properties of molecular materials. This in-depth presentation of time-dependent response theory and its applications in spectroscopy provides an important advance towards a modern vision of theoretical tools for researchers in academia and industry and postgraduate students.

This work introduces the factorization method in quantum mechanics at an advanced level with an aim to put mathematical and physical concepts and techniques like the factorization method, Lie algebras, matrix elements and quantum control at the reader 's disposal. For this purpose a comprehensive description is provided of the factorization method and its wide applications in quantum mechanics which complements the traditional coverage found in the existing quantum mechanics textbooks. Related to this classic method are the supersymmetric quantum mechanics, shape invariant potentials and group theoretical approaches. It is no exaggeration to say that this method has become the milestone of these approaches.

The author has published two texts on classical physics, Introduction to Classical Mechanics and Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism, both meant for initial one-quarter physics courses. The latter is based on a course taught at Stanford several years ago with over 400 students enrolled. These lectures, aimed at the very best students, assume a good concurrent course in calculus; they are otherwise self-contained. Both texts contain an extensive set of accessible problems that enhances and extends the coverage. As an aid to teaching and learning, the solutions to these problems have now been published in additional texts.A third published text completes the first-year introduction to physics with a set of lectures on Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, the very successful theory of the microscopic world. The Schroedinger equation is motivated and presented. Several applications are explored, including scattering and transition rates. The applications are extended to include quantum electrodynamics and quantum statistics. There is a discussion of quantum measurements. The lectures then arrive at a formal presentation of quantum theory together with a summary of its postulates. A concluding chapter provides a brief introduction to relativistic quantum mechanics. An extensive set of accessible problems again enhances and extends the coverage. The current book provides the solutions to those problems.The goal of these three texts is to provide students and teachers alike with a good, understandable, introduction to the fundamentals of classical and quantum physics.

The author has published two texts on classical physics, Introduction to Classical Mechanics and Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism, both meant for initial one-quarter physics courses. The latter is based on a course taught at Stanford several years ago with over 400 students enrolled. These lectures, aimed at the very best students, assume a good concurrent course in calculus; they are otherwise self-contained. Both texts contain an extensive set of accessible problems that enhances and extends the coverage. As an aid to teaching and learning, the solutions to these problems have now been published in additional texts.A third published text completes the first-year introduction to physics with a set of lectures on Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, the very successful theory of the microscopic world. The Schroedinger equation is motivated and presented. Several applications are explored, including scattering and transition rates. The applications are extended to include quantum electrodynamics and quantum statistics. There is a discussion of quantum measurements. The lectures then arrive at a formal presentation of quantum theory together with a summary of its postulates. A concluding chapter provides a brief introduction to relativistic quantum mechanics. An extensive set of accessible problems again enhances and extends the coverage. The current book provides the solutions to those problems.The goal of these three texts is to provide students and teachers alike with a good, understandable, introduction to the fundamentals of classical and quantum physics.

This book was inspired by the general observation that the great theories of modern physics are based on simple and transparent underlying mathematical structures - a fact not usually emphasized in standard physics textbooks - which makes it easy for mathematicians to understand their basic features. It is a textbook on quantum theory intended for advanced undergraduate or graduate students: mathematics students interested in modern physics, and physics students who are interested in the mathematical background of physics and are dissatisfied with the level of rigor in standard physics courses. More generally, it offers a valuable resource for all mathematicians interested in modern physics, and all physicists looking for a higher degree of mathematical precision with regard to the basic concepts in their field.

First published in 1993: This book is an outgrowth of fiber optic design courses given by the author.

How to see physics in its full picture? This book offers a new approach: start from math, in its simple and elegant tools: discrete math, geometry, and algebra, avoiding heavy analysis that might obscure the true picture. This will get you ready to master a few fundamental topics in physics: from Newtonian mechanics, through relativity, towards quantum mechanics.Thanks to simple math, both classical and modern physics follow and make a complete vivid picture of physics. This is an original and unified point of view to highlighting physics from a fresh pedagogical angle.Each chapter ends with a lot of relevant exercises. The exercises are an integral part of the chapter: they teach new material and are followed by complete solutions. This is a new pedagogical style: the reader takes an active part in discovering the new material, step by step, exercise by exercise.The book could be used as a textbook in undergraduate courses such as Introduction to Newtonian mechanics and special relativity, Introduction to Hamiltonian mechanics and stability, Introduction to quantum physics and chemistry, and Introduction to Lie algebras with applications in physics.

How to see physics in its full picture? This book offers a new approach: start from math, in its simple and elegant tools: discrete math, geometry, and algebra, avoiding heavy analysis that might obscure the true picture. This will get you ready to master a few fundamental topics in physics: from Newtonian mechanics, through relativity, towards quantum mechanics.Thanks to simple math, both classical and modern physics follow and make a complete vivid picture of physics. This is an original and unified point of view to highlighting physics from a fresh pedagogical angle.Each chapter ends with a lot of relevant exercises. The exercises are an integral part of the chapter: they teach new material and are followed by complete solutions. This is a new pedagogical style: the reader takes an active part in discovering the new material, step by step, exercise by exercise.The book could be used as a textbook in undergraduate courses such as Introduction to Newtonian mechanics and special relativity, Introduction to Hamiltonian mechanics and stability, Introduction to quantum physics and chemistry, and Introduction to Lie algebras with applications in physics.

The aim of this book is to introduce mathematicians (and, in particular, graduate students) to the mathematical methods of theoretical and experimental quantum field theory, with an emphasis on coordinate-free presentations of the mathematical objects in play. This should in turn promote interaction between mathematicians and physicists by supplying a common and flexible language for the good of both communities, even if the mathematical one is the primary target. This reference work provides a coherent and complete mathematical toolbox for classical and quantum field theory, based on categorical and homotopical methods, representing an original contribution to the literature.

The first part of the book introduces the mathematical methods needed to work with the physicists' spaces of fields, including parameterized and functional differential geometry, functional analysis, and the homotopical geometric theory of non-linear partial differential equations, with applications to general gauge theories. The second part presents a large family of examples of classical field theories, both from experimental and theoretical physics, while the third part provides an introduction to quantum field theory, presents various renormalization methods and discusses the quantization of factorization algebras. The book is primarily intended for pure mathematicians (and in particular graduate students) who would like to learn about the mathematics of quantum field theory.

Over the course of the last century it has become clear that both elementary particle physics and relativity theories are based on the notion of symmetries. These symmetries become manifest in that the "laws of nature" are invariant under spacetime transformations and/or gauge transformations. The consequences of these symmetries were analyzed as early as in 1918 by Emmy Noether on the level of action functionals. Her work did not receive due recognition for nearly half a century, but can today be understood as a recurring theme in classical mechanics, electrodynamics and special relativity, Yang-Mills type quantum field theories, and in general relativity. As a matter of fact, as shown in this monograph, many aspects of physics can be derived solely from symmetry considerations. This substantiates the statement of E.P. Wigner ..". if we knew all the laws of nature, or the ultimate Law of nature, the invariance properties of these laws would not furnish us new information." Thanks to Wigner we now also understand the implications of quantum physics and symmetry considerations: Poincare invariance dictates both the characteristic properties of particles (mass, spin, ...) and the wave equations of spin 0, 1/2, 1, ... objects. Further, the work of C.N. Yang and R. Mills reveals the consequences of internal symmetries as exemplified in the symmetry group of elementary particle physics. Given this pivotal role of symmetries it is thus not surprising that current research in fundamental physics is to a great degree motivated and inspired by considerations of symmetry. The treatment of symmetries in this monograph ranges from classical physics to now well-established theories of fundamental interactions, to the latest research on unified theories and quantum gravity.

This book contains a systematic exposition of the theory of spinors in finite-dimensional Euclidean and Riemannian spaces. The applications of spinors in field theory and relativistic mechanics of continuous media are considered. The main mathematical part is connected with the study of invariant algebraic and geometric relations between spinors and tensors. The theory of spinors and the methods of the tensor representation of spinors and spinor equations are thoroughly expounded in four-dimensional and three-dimensional spaces. Very useful and important relations are derived that express the derivatives of the spinor fields in terms of the derivatives of various tensor fields. The problems associated with an invariant description of spinors as objects that do not depend on the choice of a coordinate system are addressed in detail. As an application, the author considers an invariant tensor formulation of certain classes of differential spinor equations containing, in particular, the most important spinor equations of field theory and quantum mechanics. Exact solutions of the Einstein-Dirac equations, nonlinear Heisenberg's spinor equations, and equations for relativistic spin fluids are given. The book presents a large body of factual material and is suited for use as a handbook. It is intended for specialists in theoretical physics, as well as for students and post-graduate students of physical and mathematical specialties.

"Fundamentals might be the perfect book for the winter of this plague year. . . . Wilczek writes with breathtaking economy and clarity, and his pleasure in his subject is palpable." -The New York Times Book Review One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the ten profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical world In Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and an infectious sense of joy, he guides us through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way--bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before. Synthesizing basic questions, facts, and dazzling speculations, Wilczek investigates the ideas that form our understanding of the universe: time, space, matter, energy, complexity, and complementarity. He excavates the history of fundamental science, exploring what we know and how we know it, while journeying to the horizons of the scientific world to give us a glimpse of what we may soon discover. Brilliant, lucid, and accessible, this celebration of human ingenuity and imagination will expand your world and your mind.

This book is a treatise on time and on background independence in physics. It first considers how time is conceived of in each accepted paradigm of physics: Newtonian, special relativity, quantum mechanics (QM) and general relativity (GR). Substantial differences are moreover uncovered between what is meant by time in QM and in GR. These differences jointly source the Problem of Time: Nine interlinked facets which arise upon attempting concurrent treatment of the QM and GR paradigms, as is required in particular for a background independent theory of quantum gravity. A sizeable proportion of current quantum gravity programs - e.g. geometrodynamical and loop quantum gravity approaches to quantum GR, quantum cosmology, supergravity and M-theory - are background independent in this sense. This book's foundational topic is thus furthermore of practical relevance in the ongoing development of quantum gravity programs. This book shows moreover that eight of the nine facets of the Problem of Time already occur upon entertaining background independence in classical (rather than quantum) physics. By this development, and interpreting shape theory as modelling background independence, this book further establishes background independence as a field of study. Background independent mechanics, as well as minisuperspace (spatially homogeneous) models of GR and perturbations thereabout are used to illustrate these points. As hitherto formulated, the different facets of the Problem of Time greatly interfere with each others' attempted resolutions. This book explains how, none the less, a local resolution of the Problem of Time can be arrived at after various reconceptualizations of the facets and reformulations of their mathematical implementation. Self-contained appendices on mathematical methods for basic and foundational quantum gravity are included. Finally, this book outlines how supergravity is refreshingly different from GR as a realization of background independence, and what background independence entails at the topological level and beyond.