The official requirements for a graduate degree are prescribed in the Graduate Catalog, but there are also schedules and procedures listed in the Course Schedule for each semester, regulations listed in other University publications, and some requirements and procedures not to be found in any publication.
This is not an official publication. Although every effort is made to be accurate, the official rules are those as stated in official publications.
This guide covers the basic and usual procedures. Exceptions, special cases, and the procedures for treating them are omitted. If you have questions or uncertainty, be sure to visit us to discuss the matter.
The Physics Graduate Office is located on the fifth floor of PMA; see the column to the right for complete contact information. You can always refer to copies of the Catalog and Course Schedules there, as well as review notices of new courses, job opportunities, and fellowships. Currently, the Graduate Advisor is Prof. John Keto and the Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee is Prof. Sonia Paban.
Please note that the Graduate Office is part of the Physics Department, whereas the GRADUATE SCHOOL refers to the Vice President and Dean of the Graduate School with offices in the Main Building (Tower), Room 101.
Master's Degree
Master of Arts in Physics
The Master's degree requires 30 semester-hours work, including 6 hours of thesis course work (PHY 698A & 698B). The remaining 24 hours of technical courses must include at least 18 hours of physics and at least 6 hours of supporting work (usually outside the Department). The courses must generally be graduate courses taken for a grade, but up to 6 hours may be taken credit/no credit, and a maximum of 9 hours may be upper-division undergraduate courses provided no more than 6 of the hours are in one category, physics or supporting work. The Physics Department does not generally approve seminar, research (390/690), or advanced topics courses for a master's program beyond three hours of PHY 386N “Technical Seminar”, and PHY 390 “Graduate Research”, required when taking PHY 380N “Experimental Physics” during the Long Session. All work must be completed within a six-year period.
Doctoral Degree
General
There are three steps in the program leading to the Ph.D. degree. The first is the Qualifying Process, the second is Admission to Ph.D. Candidacy, and the last step is the preparation of a dissertation based on original research and its approval followed by a Final Oral Examination/Defense. The details of each step follow:
Qualifying Process [Step 1]
Prior to being admitted to Candidacy for the Ph.D. degree, the student must fulfill the following three requirements:
- Fulfill the Core Course requirement described below;
- Show evidence of exposure to modern methods of experimental physics; this exposure may have been gained in a research type senior level laboratory course taken by the student as an undergraduate and approved by the Graduate Adviser, or by previous participation in an experimental program, or in PHY 380N; and,
- Fulfill the oral examination requirement described below.
Core Course Requirement. During the first two years of graduate study, the student must complete four core courses: PHY 385K “Classical Mechanics”, PHY 385L “Statistical Mechanics”, PHY 387K “Electromagnetic Theory I” or PHY 387L “Electromagnetic Theory II”, and PHY 389K “Quantum Mechanics I” or PHY 389L “Quantum Mechanics II”. The student must earn a grade of at least B‐ in each course and a grade point average of at least B+ (3.33) in the four courses. The student may ask for the grade he or she earns in PHY 380N to be substituted for the grade in one of the core courses when the average is computed. A well-prepared student may seek to fulfill the Core Course Requirement by taking only the final examinations and earning the grade of at least B‐ for one or two of these courses rather than by registering for them; however, in this case, the student does not receive graduate credit for these courses and the grade is not counted toward the formal graduate G.P.A. The student may only attempt the exam for a particular course once.
The Oral Qualifying Examination. After satisfying the first two requirements above and within twenty‐seven months of entering the program, the student must take the Oral Qualifying Examination. This examination consists of a public seminar presented before a committee of four Physics faculty members, one of whom is a member of the GSSC (see Section 2.1.3). It is followed by a private oral examination. The student chooses the topic of the seminar. The seminar need not present original work; he or she is expected only to demonstrate sufficient command of a specialty to begin original research in that area. The topic is usually that which will become your dissertation. As part of the examination, the student will generally be expected to indicate a problem whose solution would be a satisfactory dissertation. The questions are directed toward clarifying the presentation and helping the committee determine whether the student has a solid grasp of the basic material needed for research in his or her specialization. The student passes the examination by obtaining a positive vote from at least three of the four faculty members on the committee.
Preparation for the Oral Qualifying Examination and the “Pizza Seminar”: Students are strongly encouraged to explore specialties in which they might pursue dissertation research. The “Pizza Seminar”, held weekly in both the fall and spring semesters, is designed to assist students in choosing their research topics and supervisors. Faculty from all research groups (see Section 2.4) will talk about their research interests as well as discuss possible research topics suitable for students. The atmosphere is informal; pizza is served to all attendees. The pizza seminar is offered as a regular graduate course PHY 396T “Particle Physics: Introduction to Research”. In addition, individual faculty list information on research interests on the web.
For most areas, certain advanced courses (see Section 3.3.3) are necessary to reach the level required for the qualifying examination. These courses and their prerequisites are also principal considerations in scheduling your courses during the first two years.
Admission to Candidacy [Step 2]
After passing the Qualifying Examination, students must apply for Candidacy before the end of the following semester. Formal admission to Ph.D. Candidacy consists of the submission and approval of the following:
1. Program of Work
The Program of Work comprises a list of courses that meets the requirements given below, and the prospective dissertation title. The Graduate Adviser must approve the Program of Work. The Program of Work for the Ph.D. is a paper form available on the Department’s website. In addition to the core courses, each Program of Work for the Ph.D. degree must include at least four advanced physics courses (with a letter grade of at least B-), at least one of which must be in a specialty other than that of the student's dissertation. A list of acceptable advanced courses is available at the Physics Graduate Office, on the Department’s website, and in Section 3.3.3 below. The Program of Work must also include three courses outside the student's area of specialization. One of these must be an advanced physics course; another must be outside the Department of Physics; the third may be either an advanced physics course or a course outside the Department of Physics. The courses outside the Department may be taken credit/no credit. All these required courses and the dissertation courses must be listed on the Program of Work.
2. Dissertation Committee
The membership of the Dissertation Committee, proposed by the student with the approval of the Graduate Adviser, is submitted to The Graduate School for approval by the Graduate Dean through the Online Application for Candidacy available through The Graduate School’s website. The Dissertation Committee consists of at least five members, one of whom must be from outside the major program. The chair of the Dissertation Committee ordinarily serves as the supervisor of research. When the research supervisor is not a member of the Physics GSC, one such member should be appointed as co‐chair of the Dissertation Committee. If the supervisor is not a member of the Department of Physics faculty, a majority of the committee should be.
3. Dissertation Proposal
A brief statement of the proposed dissertation must be submitted. (This statement is submitted as part of the Online Application for Candidacy described above.)
The Dissertation and Final Oral Examination [Step 3]
Once advanced to candidacy, the student must maintain continuous registration (including the “Dissertation” course) during the long semesters, but advising is no longer required to register. The dissertation research course (X99R) must precede the dissertation writing course (X99W). X99R need only be taken during the first semester following the student’s advancement to Candidacy. The student has three years to complete the dissertation and take any courses remaining on his or her Program of Work. If you have not completed the requirements within three years, further registration depends upon the recommendation of your Dissertation Committee and the Physics Department. If the Dissertation Committee finds that the student is making good progress towards the degree, an additional year of Candidacy is commonly granted. Beyond that, however, candidacy will be extended only with specific argument and special circumstances.
At the beginning of the semester in which the student expects to graduate, he or she must apply for graduation. There are multiple deadlines associated with graduation, among these is the Request for Final Oral Defense of the Dissertation which requires the final abstract of the dissertation, drafts for the committee members, and signatures of the entire committee. The form must be filed with The Graduate School at least two weeks in advance of the Defense. There is also a deadline for submitting the dissertation, including signatures of each committee member, in the exact form dictated by The Graduate School. Be sure to review all the requirements carefully and confer with the members of your Dissertation Committee to confirm that they will be available when needed. If you have not taken all the courses listed in your Program of Work, but have taken equivalent courses instead, you must formally request a change in your Program of Work.
If you encounter or anticipate any problems, please see the Graduate Coordinator as soon as possible to explore possible actions. Many of the forms are now available online. To learn more, please visit The Graduate School’s website at http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/student_services/.
Core Courses
Core Graduate Courses
In May 1991, the Graduate Curriculum Revision Committee published an extensive report describing the current curriculum; this new curriculum was then passed by the general faculty. Each of the four core classes—Classical Mechanics (385K), Statistical Mechanics (385L), Electricity and Magnetism (387K), and Quantum Mechanics (389K)—is required to have a final exam, which is to count as 50% of the grade in the course. Each is also required to have a consistent syllabus that specifies the content of ~75% of the course, leaving an additional 25% of the topics to the discretion of the instructor. Each final exam is to be based upon the core material specified in the syllabus and not upon supplementary material. The exam must also be available to students attempting to pass the core requirement through the exam only. Supplemental material can influence the final grade through homework and mid-terms.
In 1991, the GSSC formed committees to generate the core syllabi. In the summer of 2009, the GSSC formed a subcommittee to revise these syllabi for current practice. Faculty are expected to adhere to these core syllabi to make clear to students what is expected of them. Textbooks are suggested for some of the courses, but the textbook selection is at the discretion of the instructor.
PHY 385K—Mechanics
Curriculum Committee: Wendell Horton (chair), Phil Morrison, and Herb Berk
Recent textbooks include J. Jose and E. Saletan, Classical Dynamics: A Contemporary Approach (Cambridge, 1998), with supplementary texts H. Goldstein, Charles Poole, and John Safko, Classical Mechanics, 3rd Ed. (Prentice Hall).
The course will cover Newton’s laws of motion, phase space, Lagrangians, Hamilton’s principle, scattering theory, chaotic scattering, Lyapunov exponents, linear and nonlinear oscillators, overlapping resonance, KAM theorem, integrability, Hamilton-Jacobi theory, action-angle variables, sympletic maps, and the Liouville theorems. Scientific computing is required for solving the nonlinear dynamics homework problems.
Instructors may draw 25% of the material from additional topics, which may include: Stormer orbits in dipole magnetic fields; geometrical formulation of mechanics in one and two forms; rigid body motion in Euler angles; action-angle variables for charged particle in general magnetic fields; light rays and wave packet trajectories in inhomogeneous media and/or lenses; stability of orbits in synchrotrons and other accelerators; orbits in high powered laser fields.
PHY 385L—Statistical Mechanics
Curriculum Committee: Qian Niu (chair), Allan MacDonald, and Michael Marder
A. The Laws of Thermodynamics (Concepts of equilibrium, temperature, heat, and entropy)
B. The rules of Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics (Ensembles, classical and quantum)
C. Elementary Applications of Ensemble theory (Ideal gases, Black-body radiation, Curie magnetism, etc.)
D. Interacting systems (Perturbation theory, Monte Carlo methods, phase transitions, critical phenomena)
E. Kinetics and Transport
PHY 387K—Electricity and Magnetism
Curriculum Committee: Mike Downer (Chair), Herb Berk, Gennady Shvets, Takeshi Udagawa, and Austin Gleeson
Textbook: J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 3rd ed.1 Internet sites featuring solutions to Jackson’s problems have proliferated in recent years.2 Those instructors who use Jackson’s problems for assignments should therefore establish through their course syllabi a clear policy regarding use of these sites, as well as clear grading procedures. These might include counting homework only a small percentage of the course grade, using an honor system, etc. Instructors should also be encouraged to draw on other sources for graded homework and exam problems.
Curriculum
Required: (i) Highlights of Chapters 1-5, treated as a review of electrostatics, magnetostatics, and mathematical techniques covered in most undergraduate E&M courses. (2 to 3 weeks)
(ii) Chapters 6-10. These chapters should be covered in depth through class lectures and discussion, homework assignments, mid-term exams, and the final exam with options as described below (11 to 12 weeks)
Optional: Individual instructors may, at their discretion… (i) …skip a small fraction (~¼ or less) of the sections of any of the core chapters 6 through 10.
(ii) …add selected material from later chapters of Jackson (e.g. relativistic theory of fields and particles) or from other sources (e.g. nonlinear optics) up to ~20% of the course content (~2 to 3 weeks). In this case, the instructor may elect to skip a larger fraction of chapters 8, 9, or 10. In no case should an entire chapter 6 through 10 be skipped.
The committee recognized that having only one required E&M core course entails omitting material from the core that some faculty and students consider vitally important. PHY 387L provides a natural home for this material. Instructors should not attempt to teach it in PHY 387K, except as noted above, because that contributes to inconsistency in the core curriculum.3
PHY 387L should be the Department’s primary venue for advanced instruction in relativistic theory of particles and fields (Jackson chapters 11–16) and other advanced E&M topics not covered in PHY 387K. Note that PHY 387L can substitute for PHY 387K as a core course requirement for students who have completed a prior Jackson-level E&M course.
Exams
When only a single section of PHY 387K is held, the norm for the past decade, the PHY 387K instructor is solely responsible for composing, grading, and setting procedural rules (e.g. open- vs. closed-book) for the final exam for both course enrollees and exam-only candidates.
If, in the future, two or more sections of PHY 387K are held simultaneously, a common final exam should be administered for all sections.
Course procedures and policies outside of the final exam should be left at the discretion of individual instructors. From recent practice, typical pre-final course requirements include two mid-term exams (or one mid-term and a term paper) and regular homework assignments.
Notes
1 This updates the 1991 recommendation of Jackson’s 2nd ed. The committee discussed several alternative texts, including Brau, Modern Problems in Classical Electrodynamics (OUP 2004), which is used at Vanderbilt University; Landau & Lifschitz, The Classical Theory of Fields, 4th ed.; and Schwinger, Classical Electrodynamics. Some committee members were favorably impressed with Brau’s book, noting that it provides a multitude of new problems as potential alternatives to Jackson’s. In the end, however, we decided unanimously that Jackson’s text provides the best level of instruction for beginning graduate students and remains unrivaled in its breadth and depth of coverage. We noted that Jackson’s text is used by 76 of 80 graduate physics programs surveyed in the 2005 AIP report Core and Breadth in Physics Doctoral Education (Table 16).
2 Some examples:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pran/jackson/
http://virgo.physics.ucdavis.edu/~tanya/jackson/jackson.html
3 In specifying this content, the committee was cognizant of a recommendation by the APS/AAPT Task Force on Graduate Education (TFGE) in its 2005 report Graduate Education in Physics “...that the content of core courses be consistent year-to-year and supervised closely by the department. Within that context, the TFGE believes that turnover in instructors is a good thing.” (p.12)
4 The committee noted from the 2005 APS/AAPT report that 26% of surveyed programs, like us, required a single E&M course, whereas 74% required two E&M courses. On the other hand, most top-30 departments, like us, required only a single E&M course.
PHY 389K—Quantum Mechanics
Curriculum Committee: Arno Bohm (chair), Duane Dicus, and Mark Raizen
Recent textbooks have included Modern Quantum Mechanics (Revised Ed.) by J. J. Sakurai and S. F. Tuan(Adison-Wesley); and Quantum Mechanics: Foundations and Applications by A. Bohm.
A. Introducing the basic ideas of quantum mechanics using 1-D systems (square well, harmonic oscillator)
B. Quantum mechanics in 3 dimensions, angular momentum, rotational systems and/or hydrogen atom
C. Combination of quantum systems: Center of mass and relative motion and/or other examples. Addition of angular momenta.
D. Time-independent perturbation theory, particles in an external magnetic fields
E. Time evolution of quantum systems
F. Fundamentals of scattering theory (if time permits)
Advanced Courses
Advanced Physics Courses
PT
396K—Quantum Field Theory I
396L—Quantum Field Theory II
396P—String Theory I
396Q—String Theory II
HE
396J—Intro. to Elementary Particle Physics
NU
397K—Intro. to High Energy Physics & RHIC
REL
387M—Relativity I
387N—Relativity II
ND
382M—Fluid Mechanics
382N—Nonlinear Mechanics
382P—Biophysics I
382Q—Biophysics II
PL
380L—Plasma Physics I
380M—Plasma Physics II
CM
392K—Solid State Physics I
392L—Solid State Physics II
392N—Many Body Theory
A&M
395—Atomic & Molecular Physics
395K—Nonlinear Optics and Lasers
395L—Laser Physics
THEORY
386K—Physics of Sensors
NON-SPECIAL*:
387L—E&M II
389L—Quantum Mechanics II
381N—Advanced Method of Mathematical Physics
* The courses under this category cannot be used as an advanced course outside your specialty. All other courses can be.
Special Degree Programs
Würzburg Exchange Program
Intensive One-Year Master’s (Würzburg)
Fall
380N — Experimental Physics
390 — Research Course
3xx — Physics course (386K suggested)
3xx — Physics (or related) course
Spring
698A — Master’s Thesis
386N — Technical Seminar
3xx — Physics course
3xx — Mathematics, CAM, EE, or other technical course
Summer
698B — Master’s Thesis
3xx — Mathematics, CAM, EE, or other technical course
The six hours of technical supporting work can be transferred from the University of Würzburg.
PKU-UT Dual Degree
Peking University–University of Texas dual-Ph.D. program
UT also participates in a special program allowing a Ph.D. student (who has already completed a Master’s degree) to pursue a Ph.D. at both UT and Peking University simultaneously. For more information, please visit the program’s informational site.
