Physics 562: Spectroscopy
last updated:  April 20, 2016
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Announcements:   Below is the detailed schedule for the course.

Class meeting time:  T/Th 9:30-10:45, Workman 352

Contact Info: M. Creech-Eakman, Workman 357, X5809 OR occasionally MRO, ROB 147, X6756 OR mce at kestrel.nmt.edu
K. Minschwaner, Workman  309, X5226 OR krm at kestrel.nmt.edu

Office hours: Posted on the door to our Workman Offices or by appointment (try email)

Main books: Molecules and Radiation, Steinfeld  AND  Symmetry, McWeeny

Click here for a pdf copy of the syllabus.


Quote for thought:
"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
--Albert Einstein

Links for grabbing papers:

ADS Abstracts
LANL Preprint Server


Links for required or useful reading: (you'll need to be on the campus network to download most of these)
QM Primer from Sweden
"Radiative Transfer in Stellar Atmospheres" R. J. Rutten
"Radiative Transfer in the Earth System" C. Zender
"Fundamentals of Molecular Spectroscopy" W. Struve
"Partial Grotrain Daigrams of Astrophysical Interest" Moore & Merrill
"Tables of Molecular Vibrational Frequencies" Shimanouchi
Infrared Lines Lists developed for Astrophysics
Harvard-CfA's AMP Center Databases

Geoffrey Blake -- GPS at Caltech --  Spectroscopy Course
George Djorgovski -- Astronomy at Caltech -- Spectrographs Lecture from AY122
Claire Vallance -- Excellent discussion of symmetry in molecules -- Chemistry Course at Oxford
Nice pictorial of molecular orbitals at UC Davis
Nice Symmetry Adapted Example of water molecule at Institute for Physics and Theoretical Chem. in Germany
Molecular Vibration Examples at UCLA
Rules of thumb for IR Vibrations at Michigan State

Other potentially useful goodies:

Atomic and molecular databases --- CHIANTI   Plasma gate  NIST  VSTAR  VirtualPlanetLab  ExoMol
IAEA Data Services
HITRAN
Opacity databases ---  LANL TOPS   LLNL OPAL
Chemical Information:  ChemSpider



Schedule, Reading and homework assignments:
Jan 19: Syllabus and class intros
Jan 21: Quick review of QM formalism and some perturbation theory.
Jan 26: More purturbation theory.  HW #1 Due.
Jan 28:  Basics of radiation and atomic interaction.
Feb 2:  Notes continued. 
Feb 4:  Einstein coefficients.  HW #2 Due.
Feb 9:  Line profiles.  
Feb 11:Many electron atoms.
Feb 16:  Spin-orbit coupling  HW #3 Due.
Feb 18:  Diatomics -- B-O approximation
Feb 23:  Naming conventions -- Hetero/Homogeneous
 HW #4 Due.
Feb 25:  Examples
Mar 1:  Optics -- Prisms  HW #5 Due
Mar 3:   Gratings
Mar 8:  F-P systems
Mar 10:   FTS systems and detectors -- Midterm coming out
Mar 14 -18:  Spring Break
Mar 22: Start group theory (Ch 1-3 McWeeny)  
Mar 24:  More group theory  HW #6 Due -- Midterm Due
Mar 29:  Wrap up group theory.  Start rigid rotors in diatomics.
Mar 31: More diatomics and examples.
Apr 5: Visiting Ebert-Fastie.  HW #7 Due.
Apr 7:  Diatomic vibrational and ro-vibrational spectra.
April 12:  Polyatomic rigid rotations.
April 14:  More polyatomic rotations.
April 19:  Polyatomic vibrations from classical
April 21:  Quantum polyatomic vibrations.
April 26:
April 28:  Ro-vibrational spectra.
May 3:  Wrap-up -- final discussions.
May 5: Presentations about projects.  Final papers (2 copies) due Wed May 11 to both profs.





Finals week:  Final projects due this week.