UPSC Exam-Indian Forest Service(IFoS) Exam 2013-Main Examination Syllabus-Physics-Paper 1

Physics

Paper I

Section-A

1. Classical Mechanics

(a) Particle dynamics

Centre of mass and laboratory

coordinates, conservation of linear and angular momentum. The rocket equation. Rutherford scattering, Galilean transformation, intertial and non-inertial frames, rotating frames, centrifugal and Coriolis forces, Foucault pendulum.

(b) System of particles

Constraints, degrees of freedom, generalised coordinates and

momenta. Lagrange's equation and applications to linear harmonic oscillator, simple pendulum and central force problems. Cyclic coordinates, Hamilitonian Lagrange's equation from Hamilton's principle.

(c) Rigid body dynamics

Eulerian angles, inertia tensor, principal moments of inertia. Euler's equation of motion of a rigid body, force-free motion of a rigid body. Gyroscope.

2. Special Relativity, Waves & Geometrical Optics

(a) Special Relativity

Michelson-Morley experiment and its implications. Lorentz transformations-length contraction, time dilation, addition of velocities, aberration and Doppler effect, mass-energy relation, simple applications to a decay process. Minkowski diagram, four dimensional momentum vector. Covariance of equations of physics.

(b) 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.

(c) Geometrical Optics

Laws of relfection and refraction from Fermat's principle. Matrix method in paraxial optic-thin lens formula, nodal planes, system of two thin lenses, chromatic and spherical aberrations.

3. Physical Optics

(a) Interference

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

(b) Diffraction

Fraunhofer diffraction-single slit, double slit, diffraction grating, resolving power. Fresnel diffraction: - half-period zones and zones plates. Fresnel integrals. Application of Cornu's spiral to the analysis of diffraction at a straight edge and by a long narrow slit. Diffraction by a circular aperture and the Airy pattern

.

(c) Polarisation and Modern Optics

Production and detection of linearly and circularly polarised light. Double refraction, quarter wave plate. Optical activity. Principles of fibre optics attenuation; pulse dispersion in step index and parabolic index fibres; material dispersion, single mode fibres. Lasers-Einstein A and B coefficients. Ruby and He-Ne lasers. Characteristics of

laser light-spatial and temporal coherence. Focussing of laser beams. Three-level scheme for laser operation.

Section-B

4. Electricity and Magnetism

(a) 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 images and its applications. Potential and field due to a dipole, force and torque on a dipole in an external field. Dielectrics, polarisation. Solutions to boundary-value problemsconducting

and dielectric spheres in a uniForm electric field. Magentic shell, uniformly magnetised sphere. Ferromagnetic materials, hysteresis, energy loss.

(b) 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 rms values in AC circuits. LR CR and LCR circuits- series and parallel resonance. Quality factor. Principal of transformer.

5. Electromagnetic Theory & Black Body Radiation

(a) Electromagnetic Theory

Displacement current and Maxwell's equations. Wave equations in vacuum, Pointing theorem. Vector and scalar potentials. Gauge invariance, Lorentz and Coulomb gauges. 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. Normal and anomalous dispersion. Rayleigh scattering.

(b) Blackbody radiation

Balckbody radiation ad Planck radiation law- Stefan-Boltzmann law, Wien displacement law and Rayleigh-Jeans law. Planck mass, Planck length, Planck time,. Planck temperature and Planck energy.

6. Thermal and Statistical Physics

(a) Thermodynamics

Laws of thermodynamics, reversible and irreversible processes, entropy. Isothermal, adiabatic, isobaric, isochoric processes and entropy change. Otto and Diesel 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-Petit, Einstein, and Debye's theories of specific heat of solids. Maxwell lllrelations and applications. Clausius- Clapeyron equation. Adiabatic demagnetisation, Joule-Kelvin effect and liquefaction of

gases.

(b) Statistical Physics

Saha ionization formula. Bose-Einstein condenssation. Thermodynamic behaviour of an ideal Fermi gas, Chandrasekhar limit, elementary ideas about neutron stars and pulsars. Brownian motion as a random walk, diffusion process. Concept of negative temperatures.