Gravity, a Geometrical Course presents general relativity (GR)
in a systematic and exhaustive way, covering three aspects that are
homogenized into a single texture: i) the mathematical, geometrical
foundations, exposed in a self consistent contemporary formalism,
ii) the main physical, astrophysical and cosmological applications,
updated to the issues of contemporary research and observations,
with glimpses on supergravity and superstring theory, iii) the
historical development of scientific ideas underlying both the
birth of general relativity and its subsequent evolution. The book
is divided in two volumes.
Volume Two is covers black holes, cosmology and an introduction
to supergravity. The aim of this volume is two-fold. It completes
the presentation of GR and it introduces the reader to theory of
gravitation beyond GR, which is supergravity. Starting with a short
history of the black hole concept, the book covers the Kruskal
extension of the Schwarzschild metric, the causal structures of
Lorentzian manifolds, Penrose diagrams and a detailed analysis of
the Kerr-Newman metric. An extensive historical account of the
development of modern cosmology is followed by a detailed
presentation of its mathematical structure, including non-isotropic
cosmologies and billiards, de Sitter space and inflationary
scenarios, perturbation theory and anisotropies of the Cosmic
Microwave Background. The last three chapters deal with the
mathematical and conceptual foundations of supergravity in the
frame of free differential algebras. Branes are presented both as
classical solutions of the bulk theory and as world-volume gauge
theories with particular emphasis on the geometrical interpretation
of kappa-supersymmetry. The rich bestiary of special geometries
underlying supergravity lagrangians is presented, followed by a
chapter providing glances on the equally rich collection of special
solutions of supergravity.
Pietro Fre is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University
of Torino, Italy and is currently serving as Scientific Counsellor
of the Italian Embassy in Moscow. His scientific passion lies in
supergravity and all allied topics, since the inception of the
field, in 1976. He was professor at SISSA, worked in the USA and at
CERN. He has taught General Relativity for 15 years. He has
previously two scientific monographs, Supergravity and Superstrings
and The N=2 Wonderland, He is also the author of a popular science
book on cosmology and two novels, in Italian."
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