The physics of atoms and quanta. Introduction to experiments and theory. (Q4501865)

This is the sixth revised and enlarged edition in English (translation from the seventh edition in German) of the textbook on atomic and quantum physics authored by an experimentalist and a theorist. It is at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level, and it forms a balanced introduction to basic experimental methods and theoretical techniques in the field. The book contains 24 chapters, 287 figures, 29 tables, a total of 173 problems listed at the end of some chapters, an appendix having three sections, the solutions of the problems, an updated bibliography, and a subject index. This edition differs from the earlier edition (5th ed. 1996; Zbl 0855.00004) by the inclusion of a new section in Chapter 22 on nondestructive detection of single photons and of a new chapter, namely Chapter 23, containing 12 sections on topics such as the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, the concept of decoherence, entangled wavefunctions, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, Bell's inequalities, quantum computers, quantum information theory, the Bose-Einstein condensation, and the atom laser.