Structure of Matter

Intended Audience, Approach and Presentation This text is intended for a course of about fifteen weeks for undergraduate students. It arises from the adaptation and the amendments to a text for a full-year course in Structure of Matter, written by one of the authors (A.R.) about thirty years ago. At that time only a few (if any) textbooks having the suited form for introduction to basic quantum properties of atoms, molecules and crystals in a comprehensive and interrelated way, were available. Along the last twenty years many excellent books pursuing the aforementioned aim have been published (some of them are listed at the end of this preface). Still there are reasons, in our opinion, to attempt a further text devoted to the quantum roots of condensed matter properties. A practical aspect in this regard involves the organization of the studies in Physics, after the huge scien- tific outburst of the various topics of fundamental and technological character in recent decades. In most Universities there is now a first period of three or four years, common to all the students and devoted to elementary aspects, followed by a more advanced program in rather specialized fields of Physics.