Atomic and Optical Physics I
MIT OpenCourseWare presents the first half of a two-semester graduate sequence on atomic and optical physics. The course covers how radiation interacts with atoms, including resonance, absorption, and stimulated and spontaneous emission, along with dressed atom formalism, masers and lasers, and cavity quantum electrodynamics. It examines the structure of simple atoms and their behavior in very strong fields, plus fundamental tests of physics such as time reversal, parity violation, and Bell's inequalities. Materials include lecture notes, problem sets, and exams as published by MIT, with experimental methods addressed alongside the theory. No enrollment or certificate is offered since this is a self-paced OpenCourseWare publication of actual course materials, free to study at your own pace.