Quantum Mechanics of One- and Two-Electron Atoms (Dover Books on Physics)

What a delight to see this book in print again-especially at such a resonable price.This book is the classic exposition on atoms-both theory and practice as of 1977 (myreview is actually from my 1957 copy). Do not be mislead by the seeming restrictionto 1 and 2 electron atoms. The work applies to atoms of any number of electrons. Whileit will be missing modern work done on relativistic and correlation effects in atoms(much of which was done after 1977),and modern experimental techniques(lasers,coolingof atoms,etc),the serious student or researcher in atomic physics must have knowledgeand command of this material. The writing style is very clear and very careful,andeven the footnotes are a delight (and also relevant today).

I recently started working on some atomic physics projects and needed to buy some books to familiarize myself with the field. I bought several books and now think there are only two books you should initially buy. Hans Bethe's book is a definite must, and if you need to know more about computation and many-body techniques, then get Walter Johnson's book too.Bethe's book is mathematical. At times it can become overwhelming but if you truly need to know how to derive something, it is in there. But it's not like Jackson's EM book. For one, Bethe's book has regular discussions on what is the physics behind all the math and why intuitively one should expect that. There are also many diagrams and figures which explain many of the phenomena that are discussed.Foremost, this is a book you can learn atomic physics from and actually understand it. As an example, I was reading about solving the Hydrogen atom in parabolic coordinates. Why on earth? Turns out that parabolic coordinates are well suited when a direction in space is preferred in a problem (i.e. an atom in an electric field). Five minutes of reading and you learn something.This is a graduate level book. If you are pre-comps/quals this will serve as a valuable book for the physics discussions alone. If you have a Phd, you will love the clarity of the ideas as well as the rigor provided. For a few bucks, you can't go wrong with this purchase.

This book was used in my thesis. Really happy to have a copy for reference purposes. Part of a company library. Only signed out once.