TOPOLOGY FOR PHYSICISTS by Albert S. Schwarz, Silvio Levy (Trans) ( 9783540547549 )

Item Details

Title:

TOPOLOGY FOR PHYSICISTS

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£139.99
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ISBN 10:

3540547541

ISBN 13:

9783540547549

Publisher:

SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN AND HEIDELBERG GMBH & CO. KG

Pub. date:

18 August, 1994

Edition:

1st ed. 1994. Corr. 2nd printing 1996

Series:

Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften 308

Pages:

296

Translated from:

Russian

Description:

Deals with the exposition of topology for physicists. This book is also useful to mathematicians who would like to apply topology in their work, without specialising in this discipline.

Synopsis:

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.

Illustrations:

XI, 296 p.

Publication:

Germany

Imprint:

Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K

Returns:

Non-returnable

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