Author: Jim Baggott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019253680X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
Today we are blessed with two extraordinarily successful theories of physics. The first is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes the large-scale behaviour of matter in a curved spacetime. This theory is the basis for the standard model of big bang cosmology. The discovery of gravitational waves at the LIGO observatory in the US (and then Virgo, in Italy) is only the most recent of this theory's many triumphs. The second is quantum mechanics. This theory describes the properties and behaviour of matter and radiation at their smallest scales. It is the basis for the standard model of particle physics, which builds up all the visible constituents of the universe out of collections of quarks, electrons and force-carrying particles such as photons. The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Geneva is only the most recent of this theory's many triumphs. But, while they are both highly successful, these two structures leave a lot of important questions unanswered. They are also based on two different interpretations of space and time, and are therefore fundamentally incompatible. We have two descriptions but, as far as we know, we've only ever had one universe. What we need is a quantum theory of gravity. Approaches to formulating such a theory have primarily followed two paths. One leads to String Theory, which has for long been fashionable, and about which much has been written. But String Theory has become mired in problems. In this book, Jim Baggott describes
Author: David W. Cohen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461388414
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
Historically, nonclassical physics developed in three stages. First came a collection of ad hoc assumptions and then a cookbook of equations known as "quantum mechanics". The equations and their philosophical underpinnings were then collected into a model based on the mathematics of Hilbert space. From the Hilbert space model came the abstaction of "quantum logics". This book explores all three stages, but not in historical order. Instead, in an effort to illustrate how physics and abstract mathematics influence each other we hop back and forth between a purely mathematical development of Hilbert space, and a physically motivated definition of a logic, partially linking the two throughout, and then bringing them together at the deepest level in the last two chapters. This book should be accessible to undergraduate and beginning graduate students in both mathematics and physics. The only strict prerequisites are calculus and linear algebra, but the level of mathematical sophistication assumes at least one or two intermediate courses, for example in mathematical analysis or advanced calculus. No background in physics is assumed.
Author: N. D. Birrell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107392810
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive review of the subject of gravitational effects in quantum field theory. Although the treatment is general, special emphasis is given to the Hawking black hole evaporation effect, and to particle creation processes in the early universe. The last decade has witnessed a phenomenal growth in this subject. This is the first attempt to collect and unify the vast literature that has contributed to this development. All the major technical results are presented, and the theory is developed carefully from first principles. Here is everything that students or researchers will need to embark upon calculations involving quantum effects of gravity at the so-called one-loop approximation level.
Author: Sean Carroll
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1524743038
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As you read these words, copies of you are being created. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of twentieth-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927. Quantum mechanics has always had obvious gaps—which have come to be simply ignored. Science popularizers keep telling us how weird it is, how impossible it is to understand. Academics discourage students from working on the "dead end" of quantum foundations. Putting his professional reputation on the line with this audacious yet entirely reasonable book, Carroll says that the crisis can now come to an end. We just have to accept that there is more than one of us in the universe. There are many, many Sean Carrolls. Many of every one of us. Copies of you are generated thousands of times per second. The Many-Worlds theory of quantum behavior says that every time there is a quantum event, a world splits off with everything in it the same, except in that other world the quantum event didn't happen. Step-by-step in Carroll's uniquely lucid way, he tackles the major objections to this otherworldly revelation until his case is inescapably established. Rarely does a book so fully reorganize how we think about our place in the universe. We are on the threshold of a new understanding—of where we are in the cosmos, and what we are made of.
Author: Wolfgang P. Schleich
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 352780255X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 723
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Book Description
Quantum Optics in Phase Space provides a concise introduction to the rapidly moving field of quantum optics from the point of view of phase space. Modern in style and didactically skillful, Quantum Optics in Phase Space prepares students for their own research by presenting detailed derivations, many illustrations and a large set of workable problems at the end of each chapter. Often, the theoretical treatments are accompanied by the corresponding experiments. An exhaustive list of references provides a guide to the literature. Quantum Optics in Phase Space also serves advanced researchers as a comprehensive reference book. Starting with an extensive review of the experiments that define quantum optics and a brief summary of the foundations of quantum mechanics the author Wolfgang P. Schleich illustrates the properties of quantum states with the help of the Wigner phase space distribution function. His description of waves ala WKB connects semi-classical phase space with the Berry phase. These semi-classical techniques provide deeper insight into the timely topics of wave packet dynamics, fractional revivals and the Talbot effect. Whereas the first half of the book deals with mechanical oscillators such as ions in a trap or atoms in a standing wave the second half addresses problems where the quantization of the radiation field is of importance. Such topics extensively discussed include optical interferometry, the atom-field interaction, quantum state preparation and measurement, entanglement, decoherence, the one-atom maser and atom optics in quantized light fields. Quantum Optics in Phase Space presents the subject of quantum optics as transparently as possible. Giving wide-ranging references, it enables students to study and solve problems with modern scientific literature. The result is a remarkably concise yet comprehensive and accessible text- and reference book - an inspiring source of information and insight for students, teachers and researchers alike.
Author: Jeff Murugan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521114403
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 453
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Book Description
Encapsulates the latest debates on this topic, giving researchers and graduate students an up-to-date view of the field.
Author: Cosmas Zachos
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9812383840
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560
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Book Description
Wigner's quasi-probability distribution function in phase space is a special (Weyl) representation of the density matrix. It has been useful in describing quantum transport in quantum optics; nuclear physics; decoherence, quantum computing, and quantum chaos. It is also important in signal processing and the mathematics of algebraic deformation. A remarkable aspect of its internal logic, pioneered by Groenewold and Moyal, has only emerged in the last quarter-century: it furnishes a third, alternative, formulation of quantum mechanics, independent of the conventional Hilbert space, or path integral formulations.In this logically complete and self-standing formulation, one need not choose sides ? coordinate or momentum space. It works in full phase space, accommodating the uncertainty principle, and it offers unique insights into the classical limit of quantum theory. This invaluable book is a collection of the seminal papers on the formulation, with an introductory overview which provides a trail map for those papers; an extensive bibliography; and simple illustrations, suitable for applications to a broad range of physics problems. It can provide supplementary material for a beginning graduate course in quantum mechanics.
Author: Roger Penrose
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
This book is based on a conference held at Oxford in the Spring of 1984 to discuss Quantum Gravity. As an assessment of the present status of quantum theory which also considers future developments, this book should provide much stimulating material for both researchers and post graduate students in theortical and mathematical physics.
Author: Roger Boudet
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642191991
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
This book continues the fundamental work of Arnold Sommerfeld and David Hestenes formulating theoretical physics in terms of Minkowski space-time geometry. We see how the standard matrix version of the Dirac equation can be reformulated in terms of a real space-time algebra, thus revealing a geometric meaning for the “number i” in quantum mechanics. Next, it is examined in some detail how electroweak theory can be integrated into the Dirac theory and this way interpreted in terms of space-time geometry. Finally, some implications for quantum electrodynamics are considered. The presentation of real quantum electromagnetism is expressed in an addendum. The book covers both the use of the complex and the real languages and allows the reader acquainted with the first language to make a step by step translation to the second one.
Author: Slava G. Turyshev
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814261203
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 764
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Book Description
Space-based laboratory research in fundamental physics is an emerging research discipline that offers great discovery potential and at the same time could drive the development of technological advances which are likely to be important to scientists and technologists in many other different research fields. The articles in this review volume have been contributed by participants of the international workshop ?From Quantum to Cosmos: Fundamental Physics Research in Space? held at the Airlie Center in Warrenton, Virginia, USA, on May 21?24, 2006. This unique volume discusses the advances in our understanding of fundamental physics that are anticipated in the near future, and evaluates the discovery potential of a number of recently proposed space-based gravitational experiments. Specific research areas covered include various tests of general relativity and alternative theories, search of physics beyond the Standard Model, investigations of possible violations of the equivalence principle, search for new hypothetical long- and short-range forces, variations of fundamental constants, tests of Lorentz invariance and attempts at unification of the fundamental interactions. The book also encompasses experiments aimed at the discovery of novel phenomena, including dark matter candidates, and studies of dark energy.
