Advanced Quantum Mechanics

by J.J. Sakurai

Book Overview

The eleventh printing of this renowned book confirms its status as a classic. The book presents major advances in fundamentals of quantum physics from 1927 to the present. No familiarity with... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201067102
• Release Date: January 1967
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

Older But Incredibly Helpful

I would urge the reader not to dismiss this book too quickly on the basis of its age. This book fills a gap that isn't filled by any other text that I know of: it bridges an undergraduate/beginning grad course in quantum mechanics with a course in quantum field theory. My own experience, which I believe is somewhat typical, was to have a graduate course in quantum theory at the level of Cohen-Tannoudji, followed by a field theory course at the level of Peskin and Schroeder. It seems to me that these levels are separated by a virtual chasm. I suppose it is natural that as theoretical physics grows, topics once considered crucial fall into the dustbin. Perhaps spending a few weeks studying the single-particle Dirac equation might simply be wasted time when one is eager to move as quickly as possible to the frontier of quantum field theory or string theory or whatnot. But to gain a satisfactory (by my own standards, of course) understanding of Peskin and Schroeder (P & S) level QFT, I needed to spend some time in the chasm. For example: * Spending time really thinking about the Dirac equation was very helpful. Even though one can motivate quantum fields by resorting to special relativity and the axioms of quantum mechanics, it was very useful to understand in what ways the single-particle Dirac equation (over 60 pages in the book) is still useful, and in what ways it needs to be surplanted. This understanding has been very useful in studying, for example, bound-states and corrections to nuclear transition rates, where computations are nearly impossible using only field-theoretic techniques. It was also helpful in understanding the connection between fermionic field operators and single particle wave functions (which is barely a one-paragraph discussion in P & S). * An elementary treatment of the quantum theory of radiation was very fun and helpful. I enjoyed working through Rayleigh scattering, spontaneous emission, etc. I feel like I can actually perform calculations along these lines, which I certainly didn't feel after P & S. * In books like P & S or Ryder, the full machinery of Wick's theorem etc. tends to obscure what is actually happening when one calculates propagators and Feynman rules. Sakurai's treatment in Chapter 4 starts with the canonical formalism and derives cross-sections from scratch. While one loses some of the computational ease of simply starting with Feynman rules, one gains quite a lot. It becomes clear how exactly the propagator captures virtual pair-creation in a covariant manner. It becomes clear exactly why one needs to normal order operators in the Hamiltonian/Lagrangian. It becomes clear how time-ordering and normal-ordering work simultaneously when using Wick's theorem in the Dyson expansion, which is something that confused me in P & S. While path integrals offer the quickest route to calculating propagators and Feynman rules, the long route of deriving the photon propagator in the canonical formalism gave me a be

Good for you...

If you're reading reviews on advanced QM then I'm sure you'd like this book... as for me, I'm through with physics. Undergrad stuff is a breeze but it's not worth it anymore. Don't you guys have lives other than physics? Christ, I want time to take a vacation now and then and to watch baseball games and movies and follow current events. I'd like to spend some time with members of the opposite sex every now and then also and make better money than a grad student/research professor for doing the same or less amount of work. This advanced [stuff] requires one to study as a full time job. Good book though and it's a great bridge from his basic QM graduate level text to QFT for those who enjoy studying in their free time.

Very good introduction to quantum electrodynamics

This is a very fine book on quantum electrodynamics and should not be confused with Modern Quantum Mechanics, which is a postumous text on quantum mechanics, too formal to my taste. Advanced Quantum Mechanics, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. The treatment of field quantization is very intuitive, based on Fermi's ideas, and Physics is always kept to the forefront. Calculations (there are plenty of them; this is not a couch book) are very detailed and, alas, must be redone with much attention, for typos are quite frequent. I believe this to be still the book to be recommended for a beginner. She should, after all, know the physics, and be able to do a back-of-envelope estimative of the size of Lamb shift, by Bethe's method. The book teaches you that.

Difficult book, for grad student but it rewards time spent.

This book certainly isn't for the casual reader, but it is a great book for those who want to learn Advanced quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics from a distinguished physicist from a different point of view. Sakurai interjects his own beautifully strange and humourous analogies through out the work, such as comparing the creation, anihilation and number operators to the hindu trinity of Brahma, Siva and Vishnu respectively. Again there are some people who don't get this book, yet there are others who love it.

A wonderful introduction to quantum electrodynamics

Despite the title, the subject is Quantum Electrodynamics, meaning the physics of photons and electrons in interaction. So you'll find Dirac equation, Feynman diagrams, renormalization, Lamb shift, etc. There are hordes of books devoted to that. So what is the difference? The diference is Sakurai. He just couldn't write badly. And here he chose also a very good point of view: avoiding any excess of formalism. The book uses Dirac equations, basic principles of quantum mechanics and relativity, perturbation theory and common sense to derive approximate and accurate descriptions of all phenomena involving photons and electrons, including Lamb shift. You'll learn lots of physics and also Feynman's rules of calculation (the Feynman diagrams). And also a little renormalization. But only a little. Then you could go for the recent tomes of Steven Weinberg on Quantum Field Theory. Farewell!