Undergraduate Course Handbook - University of Oxford Department ...

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Appendix EFOR THIRD YEAR STUDENTSFinal Honour School - Part BA knowledge of the topics in the syllabuses for the four compulsory physics Prelims papers and the compulsory material for Part Awill be assumed. Emphasis will be placed on testing a candidate’s conceptual and experimental understanding of the subjects. Theword ‘qualitative’ indicates that the treatment of the topic will outline the physical principles involved, may include order of magnitudeestimates, but will not be a full mathematical treatment.Each of the physics B papers is a 3-hour paper, divided into two sectionsAnswer 2 questions from 4 in each section offered; with each question worth 25 marks.B1: I. Flows, Fluctuations and Complexity, and II. Symmetry and RelativityEach section is 1.5 hour in duration and has four questions.Answer two questions in each section offered.I. Flows, fluctuations and complexityFluxes and conservation principles. Phase-space and Liouville’stheorem. Deterministic and stochastic systems.The Navier-Stokes equation, mass conservation. Solution forPoiseuille flow, Reynolds’s experiment. Dynamical similarity, theReynolds number. Phenomena of instability, chaos and turbulence.Vorticity, Kelvin’s circulation theorem. Ideal fluid flows withoutvorticity. Bernoulli’s theorem, lift force, hydraulic jumps. Boundarylayers. Very viscous flows: Stokes’ law, biological motility atlow Reynolds number. Sound waves, shocks. Convective instability,Rayleigh-Bénard convection.Flows in phase space, fixed points, stability, attractors, bifurcations.Lorenz system as a simple model of Rayleigh-Bénard convection,strange attractor, aperiodicity and predictability in simplechaotic systems. Fractals, Lyapunov exponents.Simple stochastic processes, Einstein’s theory of Brownian motionas an example of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. Moleculardiffusion. Fully developed turbulence, simple Kolmogorov theory,2-d and 3-d turbulence.Freely-jointed chain model of the mechanical properties of biopolymers.Biomolecular machinery as examples of stochasticprocesses; the reaction-diffusion equation applied to molecularmachines. Single-molecule measurements on biological molecularmotors.II. Symmetry & relativityTransformation properties of vectors in Newtonian and relativisticmechanics; 4-vectors; proper time; invariants. Doppler effect,aberration. Force and simple motion problems. Conservation ofenergy-momentum; collisions. Annihilation, decay and formation;centre of momentum frame. Compton scattering.Transformation of electromagnetic fields; the fields of a uniformlymoving charge. 4-gradient.The electromagnetic potential as a fourvector;gauge invariance, general solution of Maxwell’s equationsusing retarded potentials.Equations of particle motion from the Lagrangian; motion of acharged particle in an electromagnetic field.Field of an accelerated charge; qualitative understanding of itsderivation; radiated power, Larmor’s formula. The half-waveattenna; synchrotron radiation.3-d and 4-d tensors; angular momentum and helicity; the Maxwellfield tensor F ; Lorentz transformation of tensors with applicationto E and B. Energy-momentum tensor of the electromagneticfield, simple applications (e.g. ideal capacitor, solenoid, planewave or similar).2-spinors: rotation, Lorentz transformation and parity; classicalKlein-Gordon equation [Non-examinable: Weyl equations; Diracspinors, Dirac equation.]42
B2: III. Quantum, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and IV. Sub-Atomic PhysicsEach section is 1.5 hour in duration and has four questions.Answer two questions in each section offered.III. Quantum, atomic and molecular physicsEinstein A&B coefficients. Semi-classical treatment of two-levelsystem: rate equation limit, Rabi oscillations and Bloch sphere.Decaying states and Lorentzian lineshape.Classical uncertainty in quantum mechanics: pure and impurestates. The density matrix and trace rule. Time-evolution of thedensity matrix. Measurement and loss of coherence.Multi-electron atoms and the central field approximation. Electronconfigurations, shell structure and the Periodic Table. Atomswith 1 or 2 valence electrons. Residual electrostatic interaction,singlet and triplet terms, LS-coupling. Spin-orbit interaction (finestructure).Simple ideas of atomic spectra and energy levels, spectroscopicnotation. Selection rules for electric dipole radiation. X-rays.Magnetic dipole hyperfine structure; weak and strong magneticfield phenomena in both fine and hyperfine structure;.Basic ideas of molecular physics, Born-Oppenheimer approximation,vibrational and rotational motion. Molecular spectra,Franck-Condon principle. [Non-examinable: Simple ideas ofmolecular bonding, effects of exchange symmetry in homonucleardiatomic molecules.]Homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening of spectral lines.Saturated absorption and saturated gain. Minimum conditionsfor laser operation, population inversion, the optical gain crosssection,rate equations governing population inversion and growthof laser radiation; cavity effects. 3- and 4-level laser systems.Frequency tuning of lasers.IV. Sub-atomic PhysicsKnowledge of the special relativity in the Prelims paper CP1will be assumedConcept of a scattering cross section, Quantum mechanicalscattering; The Born approximation. Feynman rules in quantummechanics. Yukawa potential, propagator, virtual particleexchange. Resonance scattering, Breit-Wigner; decay widths.Fermi’s golden rule. Use of invariants in relativistic particledecay and formation.Elastic and inelastic scattering; form factors. Structure of thenucleus: nuclear mass & binding energies; stability, radioactivity, and decay; measurement of radioactivity with semiconductordetectors; Fermi theory, the (A,Z) plane.Energy production through fission (nuclear reactors), fusion (p-pand D-T) in the Sun and Tokamaks. The p-p & CNO cycles.Solar neutrinos. Stellar structure; formation of heavier elements.Quark model of hadrons: the light meson and baryon multiplets;nucleons as bound states of quarks; quarkonium; the ratio ofcross-sections (e+ + e- to hadrons) to (e + + e- to muons); phenomenologyof deep inelastic scattering.The Standard Model: quark and lepton families, fundamentalinteractions and flavour mixing. The strong interaction andqualitative discussion of confinement. Weak interaction; decayof the neutron and parity violation. Production, experimentaldetection, and decay of the W and Z bosons; the width of the Zand the number of neutrino types; neutrino oscillation.43
Page 4: Contents ContinuedFourth Year 2012-
Page 10: Students are encouraged take their
Page 14 and 15: Summary of Examination Requirements
Page 16 and 17: Lecture timetableswww.physics.ox.ac
Page 18 and 19: Second Year 2012-2013Introduction t
Page 20 and 21: Second Year Outline of TopicsFor de
Page 22 and 23: Undergraduate Physics ConferenceThi
Page 24 and 25: y their performance in Parts A and
Page 26 and 27: Fourth Year 2012-2013 [MPhys Course
Page 28 and 29: Fourth Year Outline of TopicsLectur
Page 30 and 31: Short OptionsShort Options are inte
Page 32 and 33: Teaching and Learning Physics in Sc
Page 34 and 35: First YearCP1: Physics 1Classical M
Page 36 and 37: B2: III. Quantum, Atomic and Molecu
Page 38 and 39: Appendix BFOR PHYSICS AND PHYSICS a
Page 40 and 41: OpticsElementary geometrical optics
Page 42 and 43: Statistical mechanicsBoltzmann fact
Page 46 and 47: B3: V. General Relativity and Cosmo
Page 48 and 49: S16: Plasma PhysicsDebye Length. Pl
Page 50 and 51: C3: Condensed Matter PhysicsSymmetr
Page 52 and 53: Appendix HEXAMINATION REGULATIONSSP
Page 54 and 55: 7. In cl. 4(a)(ii), practical work
Page 56 and 57: Appendix KPhotocopying and scanning
Page 58 and 59: Appendix L (Lecture and Practical F
Page 60 and 61: Appendix MAcademic Staff Telephone

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