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Program Requirements

This Minor is restricted to students in Honours Engineering programs (Honours Electrical Engineering and Honours Mechanical Engineering). Students take 9 credits of required courses in thermal physics and honours quantum physics and choose three other Physics courses (subject code PHYS).
Minor Adviser: Head Adviser, Department of Physics, undergraduate.advisor [at] physics.mcgill.ca. For names and other contact information, see .

Required Courses

9 credits

• PHYS 253 Thermal Physics (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Energy, work, heat; first law. Temperature, entropy; second law. Absolute zero; third law. Equilibrium, equations of state, gases, liquids, solids, magnets; phase transitions.

  Terms: Fall 2023

  Instructors: Grutter, Peter H (Fall)

  • Fall

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisites: CEGEP physics or PHYS 131, and CEGEP chemistry or CHEM 120.

  • Corequisite: MATH 222

  • Restriction: Not open to students taking or having taken PHYS 232.

• PHYS 357 Honours Quantum Physics 1 (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Experimental basis for quantum mechanics; wave-packets; uncertainty principle. Hilbert space formalism. Schrodinger equation: eigenvalues and eigenvectors: applications to 1-d problems including the infinite and finite potential wells and the harmonic oscillator. Tunneling. Time independent perturbation theory.

  Terms: Fall 2023

  Instructors: Agarwal, Kartiek (Fall)

  • Fall

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisites: MATH 223 or equivalent, and one of PHYS 230, PHYS 251, or CIVE 281

  • Restriction: Honours students or permission of the instructor

  • Restriction: Not open to students taking or having passed PHYS 346

• PHYS 457 Honours Quantum Physics 2 (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Angular momentum and spin operators. Operator methods in quantum mechanics. Coupling of spin and angular momenta. Variational principles and elements of time dependent perturbation theory (the Golden Rule). Solution of the Schrodinger equation in three dimensions. Applications to the hydrogen and helium atoms and to simple problems in atomic and molecular physics.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Cumming, Andrew (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisite: PHYS 357

  • Restriction: Honours students or permission of instructor

  • Restriction: Not open to students who have taken PHYS 346

Complementary Courses (9 credits)

9 credits from the following:

• PHYS 351 Honours Classical Mechanics 2 (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Rigid bodies, angular momentum, gyroscope, moment of inertia, principal axes, Euler's equations. Coupled oscillations and normal modes. Lagrangian mechanics and applications. Hamiltonian mechanics. Topics in advanced analytical mechanics.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Schutz, Katelin (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisite: PHYS 251.

  • Restriction: Not open to students who have taken PHYS 451.

• PHYS 362 Statistical Mechanics (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Quantum states and ensemble averages. Fermi-Dirac, Bose-Einstein and Boltzmann distribution functions and their applications.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Liu, Adrian (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisites: MATH 248 or equivalents, PHYS 253.

  • Restriction: Honours students, or permission of the instructor

  • Restriction: Not open to students taking or having passed PHYS 333

• PHYS 432 Physics of Fluids (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : The physical properties of fluids. The kinematics and dynamics of flow. The effects of viscosity and turbulence. Applications of fluid mechanics in biophysics, geophysics and engineering.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Lee, Eve (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisites: PHYS 230, MATH 223, MATH 314, MATH 315

  • Restriction: Not open to students who have taken PHYS 332.

• PHYS 514 General Relativity (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Transition from special to general relativity. Non-Euclidian geometry. The basic laws of Physics in co-variant form, Einstein's equations. Gravitational waves; neutron stars; black holes; cosmology.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Maloney, Alexander (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students and graduate students, or permission of the instructor.

• PHYS 551 Quantum Theory (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : General formulation, scattering theory, WKBJ approximation, time-dependent perturbation, theory and applications, angular momentum, relativistic wave equations.

  Terms: Fall 2023

  Instructors: Jeon, Sang Yong (Fall)

  • Fall

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students and graduate students, or permission of the instructor

• PHYS 557 Nuclear Physics (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : General nuclear properties, nucleon-nucleon interaction and scattering theory, radioactivity, nuclear models, nuclear reactions.

  Terms: Fall 2023

  Instructors: Brunner, Thomas (Fall)

  • Fall

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students, graduate students, or permission of the instructor

• PHYS 558 Solid State Physics (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Properties of crystals; free electron model, band structure; metals, insulators and semi-conductors; phonons; magnetism; selected additional topics in solid-state (e.g. ferroelectrics, elementary transport theory).

  Terms: Fall 2023

  Instructors: Coish, Bill (Fall)

  • Fall

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students, graduate students, or permission of the instructor

• PHYS 559 Advanced Statistical Mechanics (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Scattering and structure factors. Review of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; correlation functions (static); mean field theory; critical phenomena; broken symmetry; fluctuations, roughening.

  Terms: Fall 2023

  Instructors: Coish, Bill (Fall)

  • Fall

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students, graduate students, or permission of the instructor

• PHYS 562 Electromagnetic Theory (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Electrostatics, dielectrics, magnetostatics, timevarying fields, relativity, radiating systems, fields of moving charges.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Cooke, David (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Prerequisites (Graduate): U1 or U2 Honours Physics or permission of instructor.

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students, graduate students, or permission of the instructor

• PHYS 567 Particle Physics (3 credits)

  Offered by: Physics (Faculty of Science)

  Overview

  Physics : Survey of elementary particles; hadrons, leptons and hadrons' constituents (quarks). Invariance principles and conservation laws. Detectors and accelerators. Phenomenology of strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions.

  Terms: Winter 2024

  Instructors: Dobbs, Matthew Adam (Winter)

  • Winter

  • 3 hours lectures

  • Restriction: U3 Honours students, graduate students, or permission of the instructor