Atomic and Molecular Physics. A Primer . By Luciano Colombo. IOP Science, 2019. Ebook, pp. 219. ISBN 978‐0‐7503‐2260‐7.

This book is a good introduction to quantum mechanics applied to atomic and molecular systems. It is composed of three parts that present the concepts of quantum mechanics, their applications to atomic physics and to molecular physics. The section about atomic physics constitutes roughly half of the book. In addition, eight appendices give substantial details about formal derivations and numerical calculations. As the title indicates, this book is a primer and the bibliography, which refers to more than 30 textbooks, will allow the reader to delve further into the subject. The first part presents a historical and conceptual review of the constitution of atoms and the emergence of quantum physics. The first chapter explores the nature of the atom, the quantum nature of physical laws governing atomic spectra and black-body radiation, and wave–particle duality. It ends with the introduction of the wavefunction associated with a particle and the time-independent Schrödinger equation. The second chapter presents the mathematical aspects of quantum mechanics. It explains the notions of wavefunction, quantum operators associated with physical properties, time evolution of the wavefunction, and symmetry of the wavefunction. It concludes with the presentation of the very useful time-independent and time-dependent perturbation techniques of approximation. The second part explains how quantum mechanics describe atomic systems. Chapter 3 is devoted to the determination and description of the stationary states of the hydrogen atom and the hydrogenoid ions. Then, the magnetic moment as well as the interaction of the atom with a uniform magnetic field (the Zeeman effect) are discussed. The author, after having described the action of a non-uniform magnetic field (the Stern–Gerlach experiment), introduces the notion of spin. The next part of the chapter deals with the analysis of spin–orbit coupling as well as with the fine and hyperfine structure of the energy spectrum. This long chapter ends with the description of how an atom interacts (i) with a uniform magnetic field taking the spin into account (the anomalous Zeeman and Paschen–Back effects) and (ii) with a static electric field (the Stark effect). The following chapter studies the interaction of atoms with electromagnetic fields within a semi-classical framework in which the atom is treated quantum mechanically whereas the electromagnetic field is treated classically by Maxwell equations. Absorption and emission processes are discussed and the microscopic theory of Einstein coefficients is presented. The chapter ends with a discussion of the selection rules for transitions as well as the LASER effect. The last chapter of this part is about multi-electron atoms. In this case, the electron–electron interactions and the symmetry of the wavefunction – including the spin – should be taken into consideration in order to get accurate models. The author starts with a simple central-field approximation, which leads to the main features of the periodic table of the elements. He then elaborates on the more sophisticated Hartree, Hartree–Fock and configuration interaction approaches. The chapter continues with the analysis of the energy spectra of multi-electron atoms, which includes the couplings between individual electronic orbitals and spin momenta. This leads to the L–S (light atom, small spin–orbit coupling) and J–J (heavy atom, strong spin–orbit coupling) coupling schemes. The selection rules and the interaction of a multi-electron atom with a static uniform magnetic field end this chapter. The third part deals with the description of molecules composed of two or more atoms linked by chemical bonds. Chapter 6 discusses the nature of molecules as well as the representation and the determination of a molecular wavefunction. First, the Born– ISSN 2053-2733