Topology and Geometry for Physics

Topology and Geometry for Physics
Author: Helmut Eschrig
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2011-01-26
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3642147003

A concise but self-contained introduction of the central concepts of modern topology and differential geometry on a mathematical level is given specifically with applications in physics in mind. All basic concepts are systematically provided including sketches of the proofs of most statements. Smooth finite-dimensional manifolds, tensor and exterior calculus operating on them, homotopy, (co)homology theory including Morse theory of critical points, as well as the theory of fiber bundles and Riemannian geometry, are treated. Examples from physics comprise topological charges, the topology of periodic boundary conditions for solids, gauge fields, geometric phases in quantum physics and gravitation.

Topology and Geometry for Physicists

Topology and Geometry for Physicists
Author: Charles Nash
Publisher: Courier Corporation
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2013-08-16
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0486318362

Written by physicists for physics students, this text assumes no detailed background in topology or geometry. Topics include differential forms, homotopy, homology, cohomology, fiber bundles, connection and covariant derivatives, and Morse theory. 1983 edition.

Geometry, Topology and Physics

Geometry, Topology and Physics
Author: Mikio Nakahara
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 596
Release: 2018-10-03
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1420056948

Differential geometry and topology have become essential tools for many theoretical physicists. In particular, they are indispensable in theoretical studies of condensed matter physics, gravity, and particle physics. Geometry, Topology and Physics, Second Edition introduces the ideas and techniques of differential geometry and topology at a level suitable for postgraduate students and researchers in these fields. The second edition of this popular and established text incorporates a number of changes designed to meet the needs of the reader and reflect the development of the subject. The book features a considerably expanded first chapter, reviewing aspects of path integral quantization and gauge theories. Chapter 2 introduces the mathematical concepts of maps, vector spaces, and topology. The following chapters focus on more elaborate concepts in geometry and topology and discuss the application of these concepts to liquid crystals, superfluid helium, general relativity, and bosonic string theory. Later chapters unify geometry and topology, exploring fiber bundles, characteristic classes, and index theorems. New to this second edition is the proof of the index theorem in terms of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The final two chapters are devoted to the most fascinating applications of geometry and topology in contemporary physics, namely the study of anomalies in gauge field theories and the analysis of Polakov's bosonic string theory from the geometrical point of view. Geometry, Topology and Physics, Second Edition is an ideal introduction to differential geometry and topology for postgraduate students and researchers in theoretical and mathematical physics.

Topology and Geometry in Physics

Topology and Geometry in Physics
Author: Eike Bick
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010-02-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9783642062094

Application of the concepts and methods of topology and geometry have led to a deeper understanding of many crucial aspects in condensed matter physics, cosmology, gravity and particle physics. This book can be considered an advanced textbook on modern applications and recent developments in these fields of physical research. Written as a set of largely self-contained extensive lectures, the book gives an introduction to topological concepts in gauge theories, BRST quantization, chiral anomalies, sypersymmetric solitons and noncommutative geometry. It will be of benefit to postgraduate students, educating newcomers to the field and lecturers looking for advanced material.

Topology and Geometry

Topology and Geometry
Author: Glen E. Bredon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 580
Release: 1993-06-24
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0387979263

This book offers an introductory course in algebraic topology. Starting with general topology, it discusses differentiable manifolds, cohomology, products and duality, the fundamental group, homology theory, and homotopy theory. From the reviews: "An interesting and original graduate text in topology and geometry...a good lecturer can use this text to create a fine course....A beginning graduate student can use this text to learn a great deal of mathematics."—-MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

Topology, Geometry, and Gauge Fields

Topology, Geometry, and Gauge Fields
Author: Gregory L. Naber
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1475727429

Like any books on a subject as vast as this, this book has to have a point-of-view to guide the selection of topics. Naber takes the view that the rekindled interest that mathematics and physics have shown in each other of late should be fostered, and that this is best accomplished by allowing them to cohabit. The book weaves together rudimentary notions from the classical gauge theory of physics with the topological and geometrical concepts that became the mathematical models of these notions. The reader is asked to join the author on some vague notion of what an electromagnetic field might be, to be willing to accept a few of the more elementary pronouncements of quantum mechanics, and to have a solid background in real analysis and linear algebra and some of the vocabulary of modern algebra. In return, the book offers an excursion that begins with the definition of a topological space and finds its way eventually to the moduli space of anti-self-dual SU(2) connections on S4 with instanton number -1.

Topology for Physicists

Topology for Physicists
Author: Albert S. Schwarz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3662029987

In recent years topology has firmly established itself as an important part of the physicist's mathematical arsenal. Topology has profound relevance to quantum field theory-for example, topological nontrivial solutions of the classical equa tions of motion (solitons and instantons) allow the physicist to leave the frame work of perturbation theory. The significance of topology has increased even further with the development of string theory, which uses very sharp topologi cal methods-both in the study of strings, and in the pursuit of the transition to four-dimensional field theories by means of spontaneous compactification. Im portant applications of topology also occur in other areas of physics: the study of defects in condensed media, of singularities in the excitation spectrum of crystals, of the quantum Hall effect, and so on. Nowadays, a working knowledge of the basic concepts of topology is essential to quantum field theorists; there is no doubt that tomorrow this will also be true for specialists in many other areas of theoretical physics. The amount of topological information used in the physics literature is very large. Most common is homotopy theory. But other subjects also play an important role: homology theory, fibration theory (and characteristic classes in particular), and also branches of mathematics that are not directly a part of topology, but which use topological methods in an essential way: for example, the theory of indices of elliptic operators and the theory of complex manifolds.

The Geometry of Physics

The Geometry of Physics
Author: Theodore Frankel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 749
Release: 2011-11-03
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1139505610

This book provides a working knowledge of those parts of exterior differential forms, differential geometry, algebraic and differential topology, Lie groups, vector bundles and Chern forms that are essential for a deeper understanding of both classical and modern physics and engineering. Included are discussions of analytical and fluid dynamics, electromagnetism (in flat and curved space), thermodynamics, the Dirac operator and spinors, and gauge fields, including Yang–Mills, the Aharonov–Bohm effect, Berry phase and instanton winding numbers, quarks and quark model for mesons. Before discussing abstract notions of differential geometry, geometric intuition is developed through a rather extensive introduction to the study of surfaces in ordinary space. The book is ideal for graduate and advanced undergraduate students of physics, engineering or mathematics as a course text or for self study. This third edition includes an overview of Cartan's exterior differential forms, which previews many of the geometric concepts developed in the text.

Differential Topology and Geometry with Applications to Physics

Differential Topology and Geometry with Applications to Physics
Author: Eduardo Nahmad-Achar
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Geometry, Differential
ISBN: 9780750320719

"Differential geometry has encountered numerous applications in physics. More and more physical concepts can be understood as a direct consequence of geometric principles. The mathematical structure of Maxwell's electrodynamics, of the general theory of relativity, of string theory, and of gauge theories, to name but a few, are of a geometric nature. All of these disciplines require a curved space for the description of a system, and we require a mathematical formalism that can handle the dynamics in such spaces if we wish to go beyond a simple and superficial discussion of physical relationships. This formalism is precisely differential geometry. Even areas like thermodynamics and fluid mechanics greatly benefit from a differential geometric treatment. Not only in physics, but in important branches of mathematics has differential geometry effected important changes. Aimed at graduate students and requiring only linear algebra and differential and integral calculus, this book presents, in a concise and direct manner, the appropriate mathematical formalism and fundamentals of differential topology and differential geometry together with essential applications in many branches of physics." -- Prové de l'editor.

New Foundations for Physical Geometry

New Foundations for Physical Geometry
Author: Tim Maudlin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2014-02
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0198701306

Tim Maudlin sets out a completely new method for describing the geometrical structure of spaces, and thus a better mathematical tool for describing and understanding space-time. He presents a historical review of the development of geometry and topology, and then his original Theory of Linear Structures.