Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
Speaker: Adam Bincer, UW Department of Physics
Abstract: My talk is a generalization to n dimensions of a brilliant group-theoretical treatment of the hydrogen energy levels by Pauli in 1926. To start I define the concept of a group and discuss cyclic groups as a simple example. Then the rotation group in two dimensions is introduced to get us started on Lie groups. From there it is just a short hop to rotations in n dimensions. Along the way I introduce the idea of matrices - hopefully all this mathematics will be introduced gently enough so as not to turn the non mathematicians in the audience completely off. I then turn to the non-relativistic hydrogen atom in n dimensions and show how it is governed by the rotation group in (n+1) dimensions. I conclude with some anecdotes about Pauli.