Lecture

Group Theory & Quantum Mechanics

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In course

CH-250: Mathematical methods in chemistry

This course consists of two parts. The first part covers basic concepts of molecular symmetry and the application of group theory to describe it. The second part introduces Laplace transforms and Fourier series and their use for solving ordinary and partia ...

Description

This lecture covers the relationship between group theory and quantum mechanics, focusing on the concept of k-fold degenerate sets of eigenfunctions and their basis for irreducible representations. It also discusses the direct product of representations and the basis of functions for different representations.

Instructors (2)

Ulrich Lorenz

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Jakub Hruby Past EPFL PhD Students Pavel Olshin, Gabriele Bongiovanni, Chengcheng Yan, Oliver Florian Harder, Mowry Nathan Junior, Constantin Richard Krüger

Jiri Vanicek

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Liam Oliver Marsh, Yeha Lee, Davide Barbiero, Yannick Calvino Alonso, Manas Nagda Past EPFL PhD Students Cesare Mollica, Ray Marcel Marin Florez, Marius Wehrle, Aurélien Patoz, Konstantin Karandashev, Tomislav Begusic, Julien Roulet, Seonghoon Choi, Roya Moghaddasi Fereidani, Zhan Tong Zhang, Eriks Kletnieks, Alan Scheidegger, Fabian Kröninger Courses Mathematical methods in chemistry CH-250 This course consists of two parts. The first part covers basic concepts

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mathematics

Algebra: Representation theory, Abstract algebra

Related concepts (32)

Direct product of groups

In mathematics, specifically in group theory, the direct product is an operation that takes two groups G and H and constructs a new group, usually denoted G × H. This operation is the group-theoretic analogue of the Cartesian product of sets and is one of several important notions of direct product in mathematics. In the context of abelian groups, the direct product is sometimes referred to as the direct sum, and is denoted .

Direct sum

The direct sum is an operation between structures in abstract algebra, a branch of mathematics. It is defined differently, but analogously, for different kinds of structures. To see how the direct sum is used in abstract algebra, consider a more elementary kind of structure, the abelian group. The direct sum of two abelian groups and is another abelian group consisting of the ordered pairs where and . To add ordered pairs, we define the sum to be ; in other words addition is defined coordinate-wise.

Orthonormal basis

In mathematics, particularly linear algebra, an orthonormal basis for an inner product space V with finite dimension is a basis for whose vectors are orthonormal, that is, they are all unit vectors and orthogonal to each other. For example, the standard basis for a Euclidean space is an orthonormal basis, where the relevant inner product is the dot product of vectors. The of the standard basis under a rotation or reflection (or any orthogonal transformation) is also orthonormal, and every orthonormal basis for arises in this fashion.

Direct sum of groups

In mathematics, a group G is called the direct sum of two normal subgroups with trivial intersection if it is generated by the subgroups. In abstract algebra, this method of construction of groups can be generalized to direct sums of vector spaces, modules, and other structures; see the article direct sum of modules for more information. A group which can be expressed as a direct sum of non-trivial subgroups is called decomposable, and if a group cannot be expressed as such a direct sum then it is called indecomposable.

Basis (universal algebra)

In universal algebra, a basis is a structure inside of some (universal) algebras, which are called free algebras. It generates all algebra elements from its own elements by the algebra operations in an independent manner. It also represents the endomorphisms of an algebra by certain indexings of algebra elements, which can correspond to the usual matrices when the free algebra is a vector space. A basis (or reference frame) of a (universal) algebra is a function that takes some algebra elements as values and satisfies either one of the following two equivalent conditions.

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