Graduate Courses

This is a list of graduate courses, including upper-level electives, which may be taken in the Baylor Physics graduate program. In addition to these, several advanced undergraduate courses, including 4322, 4340, 4360, 4372, and 4373, may be taken for graduate credit.

5155 Advanced In-Situ Instrumentation Techniques
Prerequisite(s): PHY 4155, 4350, and concurrent enrollment in 4351.
Computer modeling and instrument design and development of detectors for the in-situ measurement of physical and dynamic characteristics of dust in interplanetary space and planetary ring systems.

5180 Graduate Physics Colloquium
Prerequisite(s): Enrollment in graduate program.
Students are required to register for the weekly colloquium and to present papers. No more than three semester hours may be counted on a master's degree and no more than six may be counted on the Ph.D. degree.

5320 Classical Mechanics I
Elementary mechanics, variational principles, Lagrange's equations, two-body central forces, scattering, kinematics, rotations, rigid body motion, and Hamilton's equations of motion.

5321 Classical Mechanics II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5320.
Small oscillations; special relativity, including covariant Lagrangian formulation; canonical transformations; Hamilton-Jacobi theory; canonical perturbation theory; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian densities, with application to relativistic field theories.

5330 Electromagnetic Theory I
Prerequisite(s): 5360 (may be taken concurrently).
Advanced electrostatics and magnetostatics, boundary-value problems, time-varying fields, conservation laws, plane electromagnetic waves, wave guides and resonant cavities, and simple radiating systems and diffraction.

5331 Electromagnetic Theory II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5330.
Magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics, advanced relativistic electrodynamics,collisions of charged particles, scattering, Lienard-Wiechert potentials and radiation by moving charges, Bremsstrahlung, the method of virtual quanta, dynamic multipole fields, radiation damping, self-fields of a particle, and scattering and absorption by a bound system.

5340 Statistical Mechanics
Prerequisite(s): Credit or concurrent registration in PHY 5360.
Probability, statistical methods, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, postulates, ensembles, ideal systems, real gases, cluster expansions, liquid helium, and phase transitions.

5342 Solid State Physics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 4372 and 5370.
Theory of solids: crystal symmetry, lattice dynamics, band theory, lattice defects, impurity states. Applications to the thermal, magnetic, and electrical properties of solids.

5350 Fundamentals of Stellar Structure and Evolution
Stellar structure, hydrostatic equilibrium, radiative transfer, stellar surface phenomena, and corona interactions. Cosmical electrodynamics and nuclear reactions in astrophysics, basic stellar evolution, variable stars, degenerate cores, white dwarfs, and neutron stars.

5351 General Relativity
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5360.
A systematic exposition of Einstein's general theory of relativity, with emphasis on applications to astrophysical and cosmological problems.

5352 Space Plasma Physics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5360 (concurrently) or consent of the instructor.
Space plasma and lectromagnetic field phenomena; the guiding center drift equation(with applications); adiabatic invariant theory; the basic equations of magnetohydrodynamics; plasma convection, currents (including Chapman-Ferraro currents and ring currents), oscillations; magnetohydrodynamic boundaries, diffusion, waves, shocks, and instabilities.

5360 Mathematical Physics I
Theory of analytical functions, Laplace and Fourier transforms, Fourier series, theory of distributions, ordinary differential equations, eigenvalue problems, special functions defined by eigenvalue problems, Green functions, partial differential equations, radiation problems and scattering problems.

5361 Mathematical Physics II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5360 or consent of instructor.
Conformal mapping, electrostatic problems, dispersion relations, asymptoticexpansions, method of steepest descent, calculus of variations, Rayleigh-Ritz principle, finite-dimensional vector spaces, matrix theory, orthogonal transformations, normal coordinates, Hilbert vector spaces, unitary transformations, resolvent operators, operator calculus, integral equations, and approximate methods for solution of boundary value problems.

5370 Quantum Mechanics I
Schrodinger equation, eigenfunctions and eigenvalues, harmonic oscillator, and hydrogen atom. WKB approximation, collision theory, matrix formulation of quantum mechanics, transformation theory, and representation theory, including Schrdinger and Heisenberg picture.

5371 Quantum Mechanics II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5370.
Angular momentum algebra, Pauli Principle, many-particle systems, conservation laws, symmetry principles, time-dependent approximation methods, time-independent approximation methods, atoms, molecules, and relativistic wave equations.

5381 Special Topics in Physics
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and the departmental adviser.
Selected topics in physics. May be repeated once with change of content.

5V95 Graduate Research 1 to 9 sem. hrs.
Prerequisite(s): Consent of student's research supervisor and departmental adviser.
The research is intended for those students who have not yet passed the Ph.D. qualifying examination and who have not yet selected a Ph.D. dissertation topic. May be repeated for no more than twelve semester hours of credit. (Not to be counted on master's degree).

5V99 Thesis 1 to 6 sem. hrs.
Prerequisite(s): Twelve semester hours of graduate work and consent of the department.

Upper Level Electives That May Be Offered

6350 Relativistic Astrophysics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5350 and 5351.
Relativistic astrophysics, and the final stages of stellar evolution; supernovae, binary stars, accretion disks, pulsars; extragalactic radio sources; active galactic nuclei; compact objects.

6351 Cosmology
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5350 and 5351.
Cosmology: extragalactic distance determinations; relativist relativistic cosmological models; galaxy formation and clustering; thermal history of the universe, microwave background; cosmological tests, advanced topics in general relativity.

6352 High-Energy Astrophysics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5330, 5340, 5360 and 5370.
Radiative transfer, scattering, the interaction of matter and radiation, atomic and molecular structure, magnetodrodynamics and plasma physics, accretion disks and spiral density waves.

6370 Advanced Quantum Mechanics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5371.
Identical particles and symmetry, self-consistent field theory, spin and angular momenta, electromagnetic interactions, semiclassical radiation theory, many-body perturbation theory, topics in scattering theory. Applications to atomic, molecular, and nuclear systems.

6371 Relativistic Quantum Mechanics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5371.
Klein-Gordon equation, Dirac equation, solutions of Dirac equation for scattering and bound states, non relativistic limits of Dirac solutions, hole theory, Feynman diagrams, quantum electrodynamics, renormalization procedures, non-electromagnetic processes, solutions.

6372 Elementary Particle Physics
Prerequisite(s): PHY 5371.
Basic concepts of elementary particle physics; symmetries, groups, and invariance principles; hadron-hadron interactions; static quark model of hadrons; weak interactions; brief introduction to quantum chromodynamics.

6373 Quantum Field Theory I
Prerequisite(s): PHY 4374, 5370, 5371 or 6371, or consent of instructor.
Second quantization of free fields, second quantization of interacting fields, elementary processes - Q.E.D. and non-Q.E.D. examples, perturbation theory methods for higher-order processes; renormalization theory; path integral realization of quantum field theory.

6374 Quantum Field Theory II
Prerequisite(s): PHY 6373.
Modern formulation of quantum field theory; quantization and renormalization of gauge theories, both Abelian and non-Abeliean; third quantization; applications in the Q.E.D. example; SU₂(L) x U₁ theory; quantum chromodynamics; grand unified theories; theories of everything including quantum gravity such as the superstring theory.

6375 Quantum Field Theory III
Prerequisite(s): PHY 6375.
Continuation of 6374: Detailed theory of higher order corrections to Standard Model and beyond the Standard Model processes; detailed presentation of recent developments in superunification, superstring/M theory, superstring field theory, and other approaches to quantum general relativity, depending on the instructor. May be repeated for credit by instructor for a maximum of nine credits.

6380 Special Topics in Advanced Physics
Prerequisite(s): Consent of student's graduate committee.
Special topics which are related to specialized fields of research sponsored in the department. May be repeated once with change of content.

6V99 Dissertation1 to 12 sem. hrs.
Prerequisite(s): Consent of the student's supervisory committee and admission to candidacy.
A minimum of twelve semester hours is required.