Book recommendations

Text: There is no text book. The course is based on several books and original publications. Lecture notes and additional reading material will be distributed.

The book most relevant to the course (mainly for 8.422) is:

· Cohen-Tannoudji, Claude, Dupont-Roc, Jaques, and Grynberg, Gilbert, Atom-Photon-Interactions, Basic Processes and Applications, Wiley-Interscience, 1992.

Two compact and useful atomic physics textbooks are

· Foot, Christopher J., Atomic Physics, Oxford University Press, 2005. This is an excellent text on atomic structure, laser cooling and trapping at an undergraduate level which is below the treatment in class, but it provides the basics.

· Peter van der Straten, Harold Metcalf, Atoms and Molecules Interacting with Light: Atomic Physics for the Laser Era, Cambridge University Press, 2016

Atomic structure (hydrogen with fine structure and hyperfine structure, helium atom) are well covered in some quantum mechanics text books. I like

· Gasiorowicz, Quantum Physics

· Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu, Laloe, Quantum Mechanics, Volume 2

Books which I have used to prepare the courses 8.421 and 8.422

· Inguscio, Massimo, and Fallani, Leonardo, Atomic Physics, Oxford 2013. This text covers the structure of hydrogen, helium , alkali atoms, and alkali earth atoms, laser cooling, Bose-Einstein condensation and optical lattices. It reflects the research interests of the Florence group in precision measurements and ultracold matter.

· Loudon, Rodney, The Quantum Theory of Light, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973.

· Weissbluth, Mitchel, Photon-Atom Interactions, Academic Press, 1989.

· Proceeding of the summer school in Les Houches 1990:
Fundamental Systems in Quantum Optics, Les Houches, Session LIII, 1990, edited by J. Dalibard, J.M. Raimond, and J. Zinn-Justin (Elsevier, 1992)

· Proceeding of the summer school in Varenna 1991:
Laser Manipulation of Atoms and Ions, Proceedings of the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi”, Course CXVIII, edited by E. Arimondo, W.D. Phillips, and F. Strumia (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1992).

· Cohen-Tannoudji, Claude: Atoms in Electromagnetic Fields, World Scientific, Singapore, 1994. (Selected original papers of C.-T.). good collection of articles, reasonably priced; recommended.

· L Allen and J.H. Eberly, “Optical resonance and two-level atoms” (Dover, New York, 1975): Covers some more special topics very well: Bloch equations, pulse propagation, echoes, superradiance.

· W. Demtröder, “Laser spectroscopy” (Springer, Berlin, 1996): Almost encyclopedic book on lasers, spectroscopic instruments and techniques, and all relevant methods of spectroscopy - lots of references, very useful.

· O. Svelto, “Principle of lasers” (Plenum, New York, 1989): Mainly on lasers (basic principles, resonators, types of lasers), but nice short discussions of coherence and other concepts.

· S. Svanberg, “Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy” (Springer, Berlin, 1997). A lot of similar topics as Demtröder’s book, but less detailed. A longer chapter on applications of laser spectroscopy.

· A. Corney, “Atomic and Laser Spectroscopy” (Clarendon, Oxford, 1977). This book is on atoms, discusses hyperfine structure, selection rules and other effects in detail, and gives many examples of techniques and experiments. Gives a very good impression of the state of experimental atomic physics in the ‘70s.

· A.P. Thorne, “Spectrophysics” (Chapman, London, 1988). Nice book on spectroscopy, with some emphasis on classical methods and plasma spectroscopy. Long chapter on line widths and shapes.

· M.O. Scully and M.S. Zubairy, “Quantum Optics” (Cambridge, Cambridge, 1997). The theory of quantum optics! Detailed treatment of coherence and electromagnetically induced transparency, laser theory.

· D. Suter, “The physics of laser-atom interactions”, (Cambridge, Cambridge, 1997). Detailed discussion of three-level systems and coherent effects.