Geometrical notions and methods play an important role in both classical and quantum field theory, and a connection is a deep structure which apparently underlies the gauge-theoretical models in field theory and mechanics. This book is an encyclopaedia of modern geometric methods in theoretical physics. It collects together the basic mathematical facts about various types of connections, and provides a detailed exposition of relevant physical applications. It discusses the modern issues concerning the gauge theories of fundamental fields. The authors have tried to give all the necessary mathematical background, thus making the book self-contained.This book should be useful to graduate students, physicists and mathematicians who are interested in the issue of deep interrelations between theoretical physics and geometry.

The geometric formulation of autonomous Hamiltonian mechanics in the terms of symplectic and Poisson manifolds is generally accepted. The literature on this subject is extensive. The present book provides the geometric formulation of non-autonomous mechanics in a general setting of time-dependent coordinate and reference frame transformations. This formulation of mechanics as like as that of classical field theory lies in the framework of general theory of dynamic systems, and Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms on fiber bundles. The reader will find a strict mathematical exposition of non-autonomous dynamic systems, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian non-relativistic mechanics, relativistic mechanics, quantum non-autonomous mechanics, together with a number of advanced models - superintegrable systems, non-autonomous constrained systems, theory of Jacobi fields, mechanical systems with time-dependent parameters, non-adiabatic Berry phase theory, instantwise quantization, and quantization relative to different reference frames.

Contemporary quantum field theory is mainly developed as quantization of classical fields. Therefore, classical field theory and its BRST extension is the necessary step towards quantum field theory. This book aims to provide a complete mathematical foundation of Lagrangian classical field theory and its BRST extension for the purpose of quantization. Based on the standard geometric formulation of theory of nonlinear differential operators, Lagrangian field theory is treated in a very general setting. Reducible degenerate Lagrangian theories of even and odd fields on an arbitrary smooth manifold are considered. The second Noether theorems generalized to these theories and formulated in the homology terms provide the strict mathematical formulation of BRST extended classical field theory. The most physically relevant field theories gauge theory on principal bundles, gravitation theory on natural bundles, theory of spinor fields and topological field theory are presented in a complete way.

This book is designed for theoreticians and mathematical physicists specializing in field theory. The authors have tried throughout to provide the necessary mathematical background, thus making the exposition self-contained.

This book presents in a unified way modern geometric methods in analytical mechanics based on the application of fibre bundles, jet manifold formalism and the related concept of connection. Non-relativistic mechanics is seen as a particular field theory over a one-dimensional base. In fact, the concept of connection is the major link throughout the book. In the gauge scheme of mechanics, connections appear as reference frames, dynamic equations, and in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalisms. Non-inertial forces, energy conservation laws and other phenomena related to reference frames are analyzed; that leads us to observable physics. The gauge formulation of classical mechanics is extended to quantum mechanics under different reference frames. Special topics on geometric BRST mechanics, relativistic mechanics and others, together with many examples, are also dealt with.