Geometry, Particles, and Fields

Bjoern Felsager

Dec 2012 · Springer Science & Business Media

About this ebook

"The present volume is a welcome edition to the growing number of books that develop geometrical language and use it to describe new developments in particle physics ... It provides clear treatment that is accessible to graduate students with a knowledge of advanced calculus and of classical physics.... The second half of the book deals with the principles of differential geometry and its applications, with a mathematical machinery of very wide range. Here clear line drawings and illustrations supplement the multitude of mathematical definitions. This section, in its clarity and pedagogy, is reminiscent of Gravitation by Charles Misner, Kip Thorne and John Wheeler.... Felsager gives a very clear presentation of the use of geometric methods in particle physics.... For those who have resisted learning this new language, his book provides a very good introduction as well as physical motivation. The inclusion of numerous exercises, worked out, renders the book useful for independent study also. I hope this book will be followed by others from authors with equal flair to provide a readable excursion into the next step." -Physics Today Topics covered include: - Basic Properties of Particles and Fields - Electromagnetism; - Interaction of Fields and Particles - Dynamics of Classical Fields - Solitons - Path Integrals and Instantons - Basic Principles and Applications of Differential Geometry - Differentiable Manifolds and Tensor Analysis - Differential Forms and the Exterior Algebra - Integral Calculus on Manifolds - Dirac Monopoles - Smooth Maps and Winding Numbers - Symmetries and Conservation Laws