This unit is entirely devoted to quantum mechanics, perhaps the most fundamental of all the theories of modern physics. While its consequences are most readily seen in the microscopic world of elementary particles, atoms and molecules, where quantum mechanics found its first and most familiar applications, the laws of quantum mechanics apply to all physical phenomena occurring on all scales: the universe as a whole is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is also a theory of information: what information we can gain about the physical world, what the restrictions are on what information we can gain, and how this information can be manipulated.
Quantum information theory is a rapidly growing area with diverse applications to such new developments as quantum computing, quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography, all of which exploit those aspects of the laws of quantum mechanics that are totally at odds with our usual perceptions about the behaviour of the natural world.
PHYS304 deals at a deeper level with the theory and application of quantum mechanics and quantum information. After a formal development of the subject covering such topics as states, observables, time evolution, symmetry and conservation laws, and after reviewing the basic postulates of quantum mechanics, various applications of the theory are discussed. This material is drawn from a broad range of topics which includes the electromagnetic field in quantum mechanics, angular momentum, the theory of identical particles, solid-state physics, Bell's inequalities, entanglement, measurement and further basic concepts of quantum information theory and quantum computing.
