These pages are infrequently updated:
they are here to give you some sense of advanced courses that are taught infrequently.
Please petition the graduate studies coordinator or the course
instructor sooner rather than later
if you would like any of these courses to be offered.
PHYS 4267/6268 - graduate/advanced undergraduate level
(emphasis on experiments and simulations).
The course is comprised of both a classroom component and
a laboratory component. In the laboratory component student led groups will perform a nonlinear dynamics experiment and report their findings. Students thus develop intuition for nonlinear dynamics both on paper and in a hands-on laboratory environment.
PHYS 4267/6268 - graduate/advanced undergraduate level
(emphasis on theory and simulations).
The
material covered includes differential equations, their stability and
bifurcations, iterated maps, deterministic chaos, fractals, and strange
attractors with applications to physical, chemical, and biological
systems.
Pre-requisites MATH 2403 or MATH 2413 or MATH 24X3 or MATH
3308 or equivalent. Basic knowledge of computer programing required.
PHYS 4421
The course aims to redress the balance by offering a modern,
unified introduction to the basic concepts and phenomenology of
continuous systems.
The course is intended for physics, biology,
math, engineering and geophysics
advanced undergraduates, starting graduate students. The mathematical
prerequisites are modest and are developed further as the need arises.
PHYS 7147 - Introduction to quantum field theory, with an
emphasis in quantum electrodynamics. Second quantization, Dirac
equation,
Feynman diagrams, quantum electrodynamics, electro-weak interactions.
PHYS 7224 - advanced graduate:
the emphasis is on chaotic dynamics, evolution operator
formalism and applications to
either theory of non-equilibrium processes or dynamical theory of
turbulence.
Part I of 2-semester sequence, with quantum chaos to be taken up
if there is sufficient student interest.
It will be easier going for those who have taken
PHYS 4267/6268 Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos,
but that is not a prerequisite.
Text:
Chaos: Classical and Quantum
(webbook by P. Cvitanović et al.)
PHYS 7268 - This advanced graduate level course will
develop a
general theory of pattern formation in nonequilibrium systems using
linear
stability theory, bifurcations and symmetry analysis. A broad variety
of physical, chemical, and biological systems will be used as examples.
Knowledge
of partial differential equations (at the level of MATH 4581 or PHYS
6124) is required. The continuum mechanics course PHYS 4421 and
introduction to nonlinear dynamics PHYS 4267, although not
pre-requisites, will provide helpful background.
