Book recommendation 5 – nonlinear spectroscopy

Since I am going to join Prof. Shaul Mukamel group soon, I recently read his book  “Principles of nonlinear optical spectroscopy” again. This is an excellent book for nonlinear spectroscopy in molecules. Although I do think it is a little bit technical in the sense that it goes into the third-order dipole response functions w.r.t. the external electric field. But after getting some familiarity with the mathematical language (i.e. Liouville space pathways), it becomes a wonderful reading experience.

Book Recommendation 4 – path integral view of quantum mechanics

The book “Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals” by Feynman and Hibbs gives an excellent introduction to the path-integral view of quantum mechanics. This formulation of quantum mechanics, albeit conceptually equivalent to many other formulations, provides a unique perspective to solve problems. One example is that it builds a natural connection to statistical mechanics. And also it has been the foundation of a variety of numerical methods to simulated quantum dynamics for large-scale systems (hundreds of atoms).

It will be an enjoyable reading experience if one has a basic understanding of the quantum mechanics.

Book Recommendation #3

Decoherence is a process where a pure quantum mechanical system (described by a wavefunction) reduces to a statistical mixture of states (described by a density matrix). It is of great relevance for a wide variety of problems in Chemistry and Physics such as quantum-classical transition, relaxation, energy and electron transfer, quantum information and computation. The book “Decoherence: And the Quantum-To-Classical Transition” by Schlosshauer introduces and explains this concept in a very elegant way, that balances math and physical pictures. It is the best book that I have read on decoherence so far.