Gravitation and Gauge Symmetries

by M Blagojevic

Overview

In the course of the development of electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions, the concept of (internal) gauge invariance grew up and established itself as an unavoidable dynamical principle in particle physics. It is less known that the principle of equivalence, and the basic dynamical properties of the gravitational interaction can also be ex

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000687798
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	10/25/2001
Series:	Series in High Energy Physics, Cosmology and Gravitation
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	522
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Milutin Blagojevic

Table of Contents

The Rise of Gauge Theory of Gravity Up to 1961: From Special to General Relativity Theory; Analyzing General Relativity Theory; A Fresh Start by Yang - Mills and Utiyama; Poincare Gauge Theory: Einstein - Cartan( - Sciama - Kibble) Theory as a Viable Gravitational Theory; General Structure of Poincare Gauge Theory (Including Quadratic Lagrangians); Translational Gauge Theory; Fallacies About Torsion; Extending the Gauge Group of Gravity: Poincare Group Plus Scale Transformations: Weyl - Cartan Gauge Theory of Gravity; From the Poincare to the Affine Group: Metric-Affine Gravity; Conformal Gauge Theory of Gravity; (Anti-)de Sitter Gauge Theory of Gravity; From the Square Root of Translations to the Super-Poincare Group; Specific Subjects of Metric-Affine Gravity and Poincare Gauge Theory: Hamiltonian Structure; Equations of Motion for Matter; Cosmological Models; Exact Solutions; Poincare Gauge Theory in Three Dimensions; Dislocations and Torsion; The Yang Episode: A Historical Case Study.

Editorial Reviews

"The book is very well written. It provides a very good pedagogical survey of the gravity from the point of view of gauge theories that are very successful in explaining the other physical interactions. Basic ideas of the most recent theories of unification of all fundamental physical interactions are explored in an effective way. The book contains very useful examples and exercises making understanding of presented ideas easier, and they extend the results discussed in the text.
- Zdenek Stuchlik, Acta Physica Slovaca

"The experience and maturity of the writer are manifest in the clear and pedagogical style of exposition. The subject is a difficult one and the going is tough, but the author does an excellent job of making the topics as digestible as possible, without sacrifice of detail and rigor. Mathematical propriety is maintained, and at the same time there are many illuminations of physical intuition, essential to keep the interest of the physicist alive … the book is an excellent introduction to the general area of gauge symmetries and gravity …. this volume is handsomely produced and printed on good quality paper, making a pleasant and useful addition to a theoretician's library."
- Lewis Ryder, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK

"This book is a rather broad scope, intending to shed light upon the intrinsic structure of gravity and gauge invariance … This book is accompanied by 13 useful appendices, which give, inter alia, some more details on the de Sitter gauge theory, the Ashtekar reformulation of general relativity, and Chern-Simons models in three dimensions ... Certainly, Milutin Blagojevic's book fills a gap in the current literature and will be useful for students and researchers of gravity."

From the Publisher