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This book is about supergravity, which combines the principles of general relativity and local gauge invariance with the idea of supersymmetries between bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom. The authors give a thorough and pedagogical introduction to the subject suitable for beginning graduate or advanced undergraduate students in theoretical high energy physics or mathematical physics. Interested researchers working in these or related areas are also addressed. The level of the presentation assumes a working knowledge of general relativity and basic notions of differential geometry as well as some familiarity with global supersymmetry in relativistic field theories. Bypassing curved superspace and other more technical approaches, the book starts from the simple idea of supersymmetry as a local gauge symmetry and derives the mathematical and physical properties of supergravity in a direct and "minimalistic" way, using a combination of explicit computations and geometrical reasoning. Key topics include spinors in curved spacetime, pure supergravity with and without a cosmological constant, matter couplings in global and local supersymmetry, phenomenological and cosmological implications, extended supergravity, gauged supergravity and supergravity in higher spacetime dimensions.
List of contents
Introduction.- From Global to Local SUSY.- Gravity and spinors.- D=4 N=1 SUGRA.- Matter couplings in global SUSY.- Matter couplings in SUGRA.- SUGRA phenomenology.- Extended supergravities.- Gauged supergravity.- SUGRA in any dimension.
About the author
Gianguido Dall'Agata obtained his PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Turin, Italy, in 2000. After covering postdoctoral positions at the Humboldt University in Berlin and CERN, he joined Padua University, where he currently is full professor in theoretical physics. For his research on classical and quantum gravity he received the 2008 SIGRAV prize.
Marco Zagermann obtained his PhD in Physics at Pennsylvania State University in 2000. After postdoctoral stays at the University of Halle, Germany, CERN and Stanford University, he led an Emmy Noether Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich. As a faculty member of the University of Hannover and the University of Hamburg and as lecturer at various international schools and lecture series, he has taught numerous courses related to the subjects covered in this book. His research focuses on the phenomenological, cosmological and mathematical aspects of string theory and supergravity.
