Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS PY 355: Methods of Theoretical Physics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: ((CASPY 251 & CASPY 252 & CASMA 225) OR (CASPY 211 & CASPY 212 & CASMA 225)) or consent of instructor. - Survey of mathematical and computational methods used in modern theoretical physics. Vectors, fields, differential and integral vector calculus. Matrices, matrix transformations, rotations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Function spaces, orthonormal functions, Fourier analysis, bras and kets. Basics of ordinary and partial differential equations with solutions by series and numerical methods. Complex variables and analytic functions. Scientific programming in python, computational visualization and numerical methods complementing each of the analytic topics. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Quantitative Reasoning II, Digital/Multimedia Expression.
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  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Quantitative Reasoning II
• CAS PY 371: Electronics for Scientists
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA124 & (CASPY212 OR CASPY252)) or consent of instructor. - A survey of practical electronics for all College of Arts and Sciences science students wishing to gain a working knowledge of electronic instrumentation, and in particular, its construction. Two four-hour laboratory-lecture sessions per week. Effective Spring 2020 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS PY 405: Electromagnetic Fields and Waves 1
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355) or consent of instructor. - Electrostatics; electric fields in matter; magnetostatics; Laplace's equation; magnetic fields in matter; electrodynamics; conservation laws.
• CAS PY 406: Electromagnetic Fields and Waves 2
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY405) or consent of instructor. - Electromagnetic waves; potentials and fields of moving charges; radiation; electrodynamics and special relativity.
• CAS PY 408: Intermediate Mechanics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355) - Dynamics of particles and rigid bodies. Chaos and phase space. Oscillatory motion, motion under a central force, and scattering off a central potential. Non-inertial frames of reference. Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics. Coupled oscillations, normal modes, and continuum mechanics.
• CAS PY 410: Statistical Thermodynamics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355) and (CASPY313 or CASPY351); or consent of instructor. - The laws of thermodynamics, statistical and information basis of thermodynamics, ensemble theory, equilibrium statistical mechanics and its application to physical systems of interest, irreversibility.
• CAS PY 421: Introduction to Computational Physics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY351) or consent of instructor. - Undergraduate-level introduction to computer programming and methods used to formulate and solve physics problems on the computer. Also touches on more advanced topics such as parallel computing and graphical visualization.
• CAS PY 451: Quantum Physics 1
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY313 OR CASPY351) AND CASPY355); or consent of instructor. - Uncertainty principle; Schrödinger wave equation and applications; operators; hermitian operators and unitary transformations; harmonic oscillator; angular momentum and spin; hydrogen atom.
• CAS PY 452: Quantum Physics 2
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY451) or consent of instructor. - Degenerate and non-degenerate perturbation theory: hydrogen fine structure, Zeeman effect, helium splitting; time-dependent perturbation theory; Variational Principle; Adiabatic Approximation; scattering theory.
• CAS PY 501: Mathematical Physics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASMA226 & CASPY355) or equivalent. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASMA226 & CASPY355) or equivalent. - Introduction to complex variables and residue calculus, asymptotic methods, and conformal mapping; integral transforms; ordinary and partial differential equations; non-linear equations; integral equations.
• CAS PY 502: Computational Physics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Fundamental methods of computational physics and applications; numerical algorithms; linear algebra, differential equations; computer simulation; vectorization, parallelism, and optimization. Examples and projects on scientific applications.
• CAS PY 511: Quantum Mechanics I
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY451 & CASPY452) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY451 & CASPY452) - General theory of quantum mechanics, including the Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and interaction pictures. The path integral formulation. Angular momentum: orbital and spin angular momentum, addition of angular momenta, Wigner-Eckart theorem. Scattering theory: time-independent, partial waves and phase shift, identical particles, time dependent, and propagators.
• CAS PY 512: Quantum Mechanics II
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY511) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY511) - Continuation of CAS PY 511. Degenerate and nondegenerate perturbation theory. Second quantization of nonrelativistic systems with applications to scattering, lifetime of excited atomic states, many-body problems. Relativistic quantum mechanics: Klein-Gordon equation, Dirac equation.
• CAS PY 521: Electromagnetic Theory I
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY405) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY405) - Vector and tensor analysis. Electrostatics, uniqueness, electrostatic energy, capacitance. Boundary value problems, conformal mapping, variable separation, Green's functions. Multipole expansion, electric polarization, atomic models, anisotropic media. Contour integration and application to frequency-dependent dielectric constant. Dielectrics, electrostatic energy, boundary value problems.
• CAS PY 536: Quantum Computing
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASCS330 OR CASPY354) or equivalent. - Quantum physics as a powerful computational paradigm. Quantum bits (qubits), qubit operations and quantum gates, computation, and algorithms. Computational complexity classes, and efficiency of classical vs. quantum computers. Quantum Fourier transform and Shor's factorization algorithm. Physical implementation of quantum computation. Also offered as CAS CS 536.
• CAS PY 537: Quantum Platforms
  Self-contained introduction to physical qubits, control by external fields, pulse sequences, qubit-qubit coupling, qubit-photon coupling, noise and decoherence and mitigation techniques. A survey of experimental quantum device physics: superconducting qubits, neutral atom arrays, solid state and spin qubits, ion traps, entangled photons, single molecule circuitry, etc. Brief survey of available quantum architectures and software stacks
• CAS PY 538: Interdisciplinary Methods for Quantitative Finance
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY355 OR METAD685) or equivalent; or consent of instructor. - Expands upon the foundations of finance theory with interdisciplinary approaches from statistical physics and machine learning. Equips the students with the Python tools to tackle a broad range of problems in quantitative financial analysis and combines the study of relevant financial concepts with computational implementations. Students learn to use packages like Numpy, Pandas, Statsmodels and Scikit, which are commonly used in research and in the industry.
• CAS PY 541: Statistical Mechanics I
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY410) - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY410) - Probability theory. Ensembles. Steepest descent methods. Paramagnetism, ideal gas, Einstein model, adsorption isotherms. Thermodynamics, Maxwell relations, heat capacity. Bose and Fermi gases. Electrons in metals, white dwarf stars, black-body radiation, phonons, Bose-Einstein condensation. Interacting systems, virial expansion, Van der Waals gas. Phase transitions: mean-field theories, spin systems.
• CAS PY 542: Statistical Mechanics II
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY541) or equivalent. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY541) - Continuation of CAS PY 541; emphasis on applications. Phase transitions: thermodynamic theory of phase transitions, mean field theories (Landau theory). Fluctuations: equilibrium fluctuations, instabilities, fluctuation dissipation theories. Elementary kinetic theory: mean free path approach, Boltzmann equation. Stochastic mathematics: probability theory, Markoff processes, Gaussian processes. Brownian motion: Langevin equations, Fokker-Planck equation.
• CAS PY 543: Introduction to Solid State Physics
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (CASPY406 & CASPY410 & CASPY451) or consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: (CASPY406 & CASPY410 & CASPY451) - An introduction to crystal structure; lattice vibrations; electronic energy bands and Fermi surfaces; semiconductors, conductors, and insulators; superconductivity and magnetism.