SHORT Course: From Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Field Theory, operatorial and functional approaches.

Monday 12 May 2025, 15:00 → Friday 30 May 2025, 17:00 Europe/Rome

Lecturer

Giacomo Gradenigo giacomo.gradenigo@gssi.it

Course description and outcomes

The aim of this course is to survey operatorial and functional approaches to quantum-many body systems and non-relativistic quantum field theory. We will first review the operatorial approach historically known as "second quantization", by showing how the Hamitonian for interacting bosons written in terms of quantum fields can be derived directly from the many-body Schrödinger equation. It will then be presented the famous path-integral functional approach to quantum mechanics by Feynman, from which the classical limit, \hbar -> 0, reads off in a particularly transparent and elegant way. The extension of the path-integral approach from quantum mechanics to quantum field theory. Among applications we will discuss the Bose-Einstein condensation of free bosons.

Timetable and workload 

• May 12th, 10:45 - 12:15  & 16:15 - 17.45
• May 13th, 9:00 - 10.30
• May 14th, 9:00 - 10:30
• May 28th, 10:45 - 12:15  & 16:15 - 17.45
• May 29th, 9:00 - 10.30
• May 30th, 9:00 - 10:30