Phys 198: Tensors Demystified Course Description & Syllabus

UC Berkeley Fall 2012 Nadir Jeevanjee, PhD Candidate in Physics jeevanje@berkeley.edu

Meeting time and place: Wed 5-6:30 458 Evans

Course Description
This course aims to demystify tensors and provide a unified framework for understanding them in all the different contexts in which they arise in physics. Tensors are ubiquitous in physics (stress tensor, moment of inertia tensor, field tensor, etc.) and yet are usually defined in a very ad-hoc fashion, with the end result that students learn how to manipulate them but never really know what they are. This situation produces a lingering unease, which it is the primary aim of this course to alleviate. Well begin with some abstract linear algebra, which is a slightly more formal version of the linear algebra most students see as undergraduates, and which by itself has illuminating applications in quantum mechanics and special relativity. Then well turn to tensors, giving the modern component-free definition which gives the student a feel for what tensors really are. All along the way well do lots of examples, showing how many seemingly unrelated objects in physics all fit into the same abstract mathematical framework. This course will be based on the first few chapters of my book, An Introduction to Tensors and Group Theory for Physicists (Birkhauser 2011), which will serve as the course textbook. This course will ideally be the first of a two-semester sequence, the second of which will focus on group theory.

Prerequisites
This course is aimed at advanced undergrads and beginning (first or second year) graduate students. Prerequisites are 137A and a familiarity with special relativity at roughly the level of 110B or Griffiths Introduction to Electrodynamics. 137B and 105 would also be helpful, but are not required.

Organization
This course will not be as intensive as a normal physics course. Well meet once a week for 1.5 hours. Homework will be assigned but not collected. The course will hopefully be a mostly student-run seminar, with my facilitation. Since I anticipate a mix of undergraduates and graduate students in the audience, my intention is to have one graduate student present the material each week (after meeting with me privately to answer questions and shape the presentation), and to have one undergraduate each week present solutions to one or two HW problems. The course grade would then be dependent on fulfillment of this responsibility.

Grading
This is a one-unit seminar graded pass/no pass. Course grades will be determined from attendance and fulfillment of the aforementioned responsibilities (presenting chapter material for graduates, and HW solutions for undergrads). If you show up and present either chapter material or HW solutions once, you will pass.

Syllabus
1. Abstract Vector Spaces - Definitions and examples - Span, linear independence, bases and components - Linear operators - Dual spaces - Non-degenerate Hermitian forms 2. Tensors -

Definitions and examples Change of basis Tensor product and applications Symmetric tensors Anti-symmetric tensors, pseudovectors, and the determinant