Physics

Physics Engineering Syllabus for UPSC Main Examination

Paper-I

1.Mechanics of Particles: Laws of motion; conservation of energy and momentum, applications

to rotating frames, cent r ipetal and Cor iol is accelerat ions; Motion under a central force;
Conservation of angular momentum, Kepler's laws; Fields and potentials; Gravitational field and
potential due to spherical bodies, Gauss and Poisson equations, gravitational self-energy; Two-
body problem; Reduced mass; Rutherford scattering; Centre of mass an laboratory reference
frames.

Mechanics of Rigid Bodies: System of particles; Centre of mass, angular momentum, equations
of motion; Conservation theorems for energy, momentum and angular momentum; Elastic and
inelastic collisions; Rigid body; Degrees of freedom, Euler's theorem, angular velocity, angular
momentum, moments of inertia, theorems of parallel and perpendicular axes, equation of
motion for rotation; Molecular rotations (as rigid bodies); Di and tri-atomic molecules;
Precessional motion; top, gyroscope.

Mechanics of Continuous Media: Elasticity, Hooke's law and elastic constants of isotropic solids
and their inter-relation; Streamline (Laminar) flow, viscosity, Poiseuille's equation, Bernoulli's
equation, Stokes' law and applications.

Special Relativity: Michelson-Morley experiment and its implications; Lorentz transformations-

length contraction, time dilation, addition of relativistic velocities, aberration and Doppler
effect, mass-energy relation, simple applications to a decay process; Four dimensional
momentum vector; Covariance of equations of physics.

2. Waves and Optics:

Waves: Simple harmonic motion, damped oscillation, forced oscillation and resonance; Beats;
Stationary waves in a string; Pulses and wave packets; Phase and group velocities; Reflection
and Refraction from Huygens' principle.

Geometrical Optics: Laws of reflection and refraction from Fermat's principle ; Matrix method
in paraxial optics-thin lens formula, nodal planes, system of two thin lenses, chromatic and
spherical aberrations.

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Interference: Interference of light-Young's experiment, Newton's rings, interference by thin
films, Michelson interferometer; Multiple beam interference and Fabry-Perot interferometer.

Diffraction: Fraunhofer diffraction-single slit, double slit, diffraction grating, resolving power;
Diffraction by a circular aperture and the Airy pattern; Fresnel diffraction: half-period zones and
zone plates, circular aperture.

Polarization and Modern Optics: Production and detection of linearly and circularly polarized
light; Double refraction, quarter wave plate; Optical activity; Principles of fibre optics,
attenuation; Pulse dispersion in step index and parabolic index f ibres; Mater ial dispersion,
single mode fibres; Lasers-Einstein A and B coefficients; Ruby and He-Ne lasers; Characteristics
of laser light-spatial and temporal coherence; Focusing of laser beams; Three-level scheme for
laser operation; Holography and simple applications.

3. Electricity and Magnetism:

Electrostatics and Magnetostatics: Laplace and Poisson equations in electrostatics and their
applications; Energy of a system of charges, multipole expansion of scalar potential; Method of
images1 and its applications; Potential and field due to a dipole, force and torque on a dipole in
an external field; Dielectrics, polarization; Solutions to boundary-value problems-conducting
and dielectric spheres in a uniform electric field; Magnetic shell, uniformly magnetized sphere;
Ferromagnetic materials, hysteresis, energy loss.

Current Electricity: Kirchhoff's laws and their applications; Biot-Savart law, Ampere's law,
Faraday's law, Lenz' law; Self-and mutual-inductances; Mean and r m s values in AC circuits; DC
and AC circuits with R, L and C components; Series and parallel resonances; Quality factor;
Principle of transformer.

Electromagnetic Waves and Blackbody Radiation: Displacement current and Maxwell's

equations; Wave equations in vacuum, Poynting theorem; Vector and scalar potentials;
Electromagnetic field tensor, covariance of Maxwell's equations; Wave equations in isotropic
dielectrics, reflection and refraction at the boundary of two dielectrics; Fresnel's relations; Total
internal reflection; Normal and anomalous dispersion; Rayleigh scattering; Blackbody radiation
and Planck's radiation law, Stefan - Boltzmann law, Wien's displacement law and Rayleigh-
Jeans' law.

4.Thermal and Statistical Physics:

Thermodynamics: Laws of thermodynamics, reversible and irreversible processes, entropy;

Isothermal, adiabatic, isobaric, isochoric processes and entropy changes; Otto and Diesel

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engines, Gibbs' phase rule and chemical potential; van der Waals equation of state of a real gas,
critical constants; Maxwell-Boltzman distribution of molecular velocities, transport phenomena,
equipartition and virial theorems; Dulong-Pet i t , Einstein, and Debye's theories of specific heat
of solids; Maxwell relations and applications ; Clausius- Clapeyron equation; Adiabatic
demagnetisation, Joule-Kelvin effect and liquefaction of gases.

Statistical Physics: Macro and micro states, statistical distributions, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Bose-
Einstein and Fermi-Dirac distributions, applications to specific heat of gases and blackbody
radiation; Concept of negative temperatures.

Paper-II

1. Quantum Mechanics:

Wave-particle dualitiy; Schroedinger equation and expectation values; Uncertainty principle;

Solutions of the one-dimensional Schroedinger equation for a free particle (Gaussian wave-
packet), particle in a box, particle in a finite well, linear harmonic oscillator; Reflection and
transmission by a step potential and by a rectangular barrier; Particle in a three dimensional
box, density of states, free electron theory of metals; Angular momentum; Hydrogen atom;
Spin half particles, properties of Pauli spin matrices.

2. Atomic and Molecular Physics:

Stern-Gerlach experiment, electron spin, fine structure of hydrogen atom; L-S coupling, J-J
coupling; Spectroscopic notation of atomic states; Zeeman effect; FrankCondon principle and
applications; Elementary theory of rotational, vibratonal and electronic spectra of diatomic
molecules; Raman effect and molecular structure; Laser Raman spectroscopy; Importance of
neutral hydrogen atom, molecular hydrogen and molecular hydrogen ion in astronomy;
Fluorescence and Phosphorescence; Elementary theory and applications of NMR and EPR;
Elementary ideas about Lamb shift and its significance.

3. Nuclear and Particle Physics:

Basic nuclear properties-size, binding energy, angular momentum, parity, magnetic moment;
Semi-empirical mass formula and appl icat ions, mass parabolas; Ground state of deuteron,
magnetic moment and non-central forces; Meson theory of nuclear forces; Salient features of
nuclear forces;Shell model of the nucleus - successes and limitations; Violation of parity in beta
decay; Gamma decay and internal conversion; Elementary ideas about Mossbauer

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spectroscopy; Q-value of nuclear reactions; Nuclear fission and fusion, energy production in
stars; Nuclear reactors.

Classification of elementary particles and their interactions ; Conservation laws ; Quark

structure of hadrons; Field quanta of electroweak and strong interactions; Elementary ideas
about unification of forces; Physics of neutrinos.

4. Solid State Physics, Devices and Electronics:

Crystalline and amorphous structure of matter; Different crystal systems, space groups;
Methods of determination of crystal structure; X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission
electron microscopies; Band theory of solids - conductors, insulators and semiconductors;
Thermal properties of solids, specific heat, Debye theory; Magnetism: dia, para and
ferromagnetism; Elements of superconductivity, Meissner effect, Josephson junctions and
applications; Elementary ideas about high temperature superconductivity.

Intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors; pn-p and n-p-n transistors; Amplifiers and osci l lators;
Op-amps; FET, JFET and MOSFET; Digital electronics-Boolean identities, De Morgan's laws, logic
gates and truth tables; Simple logic circuits; Thermistors, solar cells; Fundamentals of
microprocessors and digital computers.