Topics in Mathematical Physics
Math 8390
Fall, 2023
MWF 1:25-2:15, Vincent Hall 301
W 3:50-4:40, Vincent Hall 2
Instructor for Math 8390: Mitchell Luskin
Math 8390 will be an introduction to the mathematical modeling of materials at the atomistic scale. I will start by introducing interatomic potentials, crystals, defects, molecular dynamics, statistical mechanics, and geometry optimization following the draft version of my book:
Mathematical Modeling of Materials at the Atomic Scale, Mitchell Luskin and Christoph Ortner (pdf to be distributed to class).
I will then give an introduction to the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics and its application to materials following the texts:
A Mathematical Introduction to Electronic Structure Theory, Lin Lin and Jianfeng Lu, SIAM, 2019 (can be downloaded for free at the link).
Computational chemistry from the perspective of numerical analysis, Cambridge University Press, volume 14, 2005 (can be downloaded for free at the link).
Prequisites: Undergraduate advanced calculus, linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, and partial differential equations. No physics background will be assumed.
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