Gravity and Strings

Produktbeschreibung zu Gravity and Strings

One appealing feature of string theory is that it provides a theory of quantum gravity. Gravity and Strings is a self-contained, pedagogical exposition of this theory, its foundations and its basic results. In Part I, the foundations are traced back to the very early special-relativistic field theories of gravity, showing how such theories lead to general relativity. Gauge theories of gravity are then discussed and used to introduce supergravity theories. In Part II, some of the most interesting solutions of general relativity and its generalizations are studied. The final Part presents and studies string theory from the effective action point of view, using the results found earlier in the book as background. This book will be useful as a reference book for graduate students and researchers, as well as a complementary textbook for courses on gravity, supergravity and string theory.

Produktinformation

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Tomas Ortin completed his graduate studies and got his Ph.D. at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. He then worked as a postdoctoral student in the Physics Department of Stanford University supported by a Spanish Government grant. Between 1993 and 1995, he was E.U. Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow in the String Theory Group of the Physics Department of Queen Mary, University of London, and from 1995 to 1997, Fellow in the Theory Division of CERN. He is currently Staff Scientist at the Spanish Research Council and member of the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Dr Ortin has taught several graduate courses on advanced general relativity, supergravity and strings. His research interests lie in string theory, gravity, quantum gravity and black hole physics.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface
Part I. Introduction to Gravity and Supergravity: 1. Differential geometry
2. Noether's theorems
3. A perturbative introduction to general relativity
4. Action principles for gravity
5. N = 1, 2, d = 4 supergravities
6. Conserved charges in general relativity
Part II. Gravitating Point-Particles: 7. The Schwarzschild black hole
8. The Reissner-Nordstrom black hole
9. The Taub-NUT solution
10. Gravitational pp-waves
11. The Kaluza-Klein black hole
12. Dilaton and dilaton/axion black holes
13. Unbroken supersymmetry
Part III. Gravitating Extended Objects of String Theory: 14. String theory
15. The string effective action and T duality
16. From eleven to four dimensions
17. The type-IIB superstring and type-II T duality
18. Extended objects
19. The extended objects of string theory
20. String black holes in four and five dimensions
Appendix A. Lie groups, symmetric spaces and Yang-Mills fields
Appendix B. Gamma matrices and spinors
Appendix C. n-Spheres
Appendix D. Palatini's identity
Appendix E. Conformal rescalings
Appendix F. Connections and curvature components
Appendix G. The harmonic operator on R3 x S1
References
Index.