Gauge Theories of Gravitation: A Reader with Commentaries

by Milutin Blagojevic (Editor), Friedrich W Hehl (Editor)

Overview

In the last five decades, the gauge approach to gravity has represented a research area of increasing importance for our understanding of the physics of fundamental interactions. A full clarification of the gauge dynamics of gravity is expected to be the last missing link to the hidden structure of a consistent unification of all the fundamental interactions, based on the gauge principle. The aim of the present reprint volume, with commentaries by Milutin Blagojević and Friedrich W Hehl, is to introduce graduate and advanced undergraduate students of theoretical or mathematical physics, or any other interested researcher, to the field of classical gauge theories of gravity.This is not just an ordinary reprint volume; it is a guide to the literature on gauge theories of gravity. The reader is encouraged first to study the introductory commentaries and to become familiar with the basic content of the reprints and related ideas, then he/she can choose to read a specific reprint or reprints, and after that he/she should return again to the text and explore the additional literature, etc. The interaction is intended to be more complex than just starting with commentaries and ending with reprints.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848167261
Publisher:	Imperial College Press
Publication date:	02/28/2013
Pages:	656
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 10.20(h) x 1.70(d)

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; Poincaré Gauge Theory: Einstein-Cartan(-Sciama-Kibble) Theory as a Viable Gravitational Theory; General Structure of Poincaré Gauge Theory (Including Quadratic Lagrangians); Translational Gauge Theory; Fallacies About Torsion; Extending the Gauge Group of Gravity: Poincaré Group Plus Scale Transformations: Weyl-Cartan Gauge Theory of Gravity; From the Poincaré 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-Poincaré Group; Specific Subjects of Metric-Affine Gravity and Poincaré Gauge Theory: Hamiltonian Structure; Equations of Motion for Matter; Cosmological Models; Exact Solutions; Poincaré Gauge Theory in Three Dimensions; Dislocations and Torsion; The Yang Episode: A Historical Case Study.