GROUP THEORY

INSTRUCTOR: Predrag Cvitanović
INSTRUCTOR HOMEPAGE: birdtracks.eu/~predrag
TA: Kevin Driscoll
TIME: Fall semester 2017, Tu,Th 12:00-1:15
ROOM: Howey S106
EXPECTED ENROLLMENT: 15

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Graduate level introduction to modern theoretical physics and mathematics techniques for study of symmetries, with applications to quantum mechanics and dynamical systems.

Suppose someone came to you and asked, “On planet Z, mesons consist of quarks and antiquarks, but baryons contain three quarks in a symmetric color combination. What is the symmetry group?” The answer requires some thought, and leads to magic that beguiles field theorists. We might get to the answer by the end of the course - but our focus will be on basic tools of group theory: finite groups, subgroups, cosets, and conjugacy, group of permutations, matrix representations, tensors, Schur’s Lemma, characters and character table construction, irreducible representations, Lie groups, rotations and why you need no Clebsch-Gordon coefficients. The footwork will be fancy.

The course is aimed at phd students, postdoctoral fellows and advanced undergraduates in physics, mathematics, chemistry and engineering.

TEXTS

P. Cvitanović, Group Theory  - course textbook, available on birdtracks.eu

B. Gutkin, Lecture notes: Group theory and its applications in physics

OPTIONAL READING

W.G. Harter, Principles of Symmetry, Dynamics, and Spectroscopy (Wiley, NY 1974) - excerpts.

M. Tinkham, Group Theory and Quantum Mechanics (McGraw-Hill, NY 1964) - nice book, worth owning.

COURSE HOME PAGE: birdtracks.eu/courses/PHYS-7143-17
START: Tuesday Aug 22 2017, 12:00 in Howey S106