Department of Physics and Astronomy

Prof. Oberacker's Teaching Website

a. undergraduate course Websites

Physics 116B: Introductory Physics for Engineers (Fall 2006)

Physics 250: Undergraduate seminar (Spring 2010), login to OAK

    Teaching Introductory Physics    

b. graduate course Websites

Physics 305: Particle and Continuum Mechanics (Fall 2013)

Physics 365: Many-Particle Quantum Theory (Spring 2014)

Physics 340A: Nuclear and Heavy-Ion Theory, part 1 (Spring 2012)

Physics 329B: Advanced Electrodynamics, 2nd semester (Fall 2009)

Physics 330B: Quantum Mechanics, 2nd semester (Spring 2009)

    Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award    
    College of Arts and Science, December 2005    

Teaching Awards

1) Award, Provost's Initiative on Technological Innovation in the Classroom, "Advanced computer visualization in teaching introductory physics to non-science majors", Vanderbilt University (May 1994)

2) Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award of the College of Arts & Science, Vanderbilt University (December 2005)

Overall rating of the instructor: 14 "excellent" (5.0) graduate teaching ratings so far ...

Phys-305: Spring 1986, Fall 1998, Fall 2002, Fall 2003, Fall 2004, Fall 2012

Phys-329B: Fall 2008, Fall 2009

Phys-340A: Fall 1989, Fall 2007

Phys-365: Fall 1990, Spring 1998, Spring 2011

Phys-370a: Fall 1988

Fortran 95 programs which might be of interest to students

Instructions:

You may download the computer programs provided below and use them as you wish. However, it would be a violation of scientific ethical rules to modify these codes and re-distribute them without giving credit to the author of the original codes (Volker Oberacker). I have tested all codes thoroughly on both LINUX and Mac OS X platforms. Nevertheless, it should be understood that these programs are being offered to the physics community without any warranty whatsoever.

To implement the codes on your workstation, download the *.zip files from the links given below onto your computer and unzip the files in a new directory. You will find the Fortran 95 source file (*.f95), an instruction file (*.txt) which tells you how to compile and run the Fortran code, and a sample output file (*.out). The Fortran 95 source file contains comments and references. All codes have been compiled and tested with the open-source GNU Fortran compiler (gfortran) which is part of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). The gfortran compiler is available for all major platforms (LINUX, Mac OS X, Windows). Details can be found e.g. at this Website

GNU Fortran compiler info

Clebsch-Gordan coefficient programs

A function program which calculates Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. Two versions of the code are offered. The first version, cg1, calculates the CGs for several angular momentum quantum numbers and compares the output to known analytical answers.

Fortran 95 code: cg1_f95.zip

The second version, cg2, is an INTERACTIVE code where you enter the angular momentum quantum numbers at the Terminal command line.

Fortran 95 code: cg2_interactive_f95.zip

Runge-Kutta 4-step program

4-step Runge-Kutta subroutine, including a test program which solves Hamilton's equations for the 1-D harmonic oscillator.

Fortran 95 code: rk4_f95.zip

Wigner's reduced rotation matrix d^j_mn (beta) program

A function program which computes Wigner's reduced rotation matrix from an analytical expression.

Fortran-95 code: djmn_f95.zip

Spherical harmonics Y_lm (theta,phi) program

A subroutine which computes Y_lm using Wigner's reduced rotation matrix d^l_{m 0} (theta).

Fortran-95 code: ylm_f95.zip