Introductory Differential Geometry For Physicists

This book develops the mathematics of differential geometry in a way more intelligible to physicists and other scientists interested in this field. This book is basically divided into 3 levels; level 0, the nearest to intuition and geometrical experience, is a short summary of the theory of curves and surfaces; level 1 repeats, comments and develops upon the traditional methods of tensor algebra analysis and level 2 is an introduction to the language of modern differential geometry. A final chapter (chapter IV) is devoted to fibre bundles and their applications to physics. Exercises are provided to amplify the text material.

This book develops the mathematics of differential geometry in a way more intelligible to physicists and other scientists interested in this field. This book is basically divided into 3 levels; level 0, the nearest to intuition and geometrical experience, is a short summary of the theory of curves and surfaces; level 1 repeats, comments and develops upon the traditional methods of tensor algebra analysis and level 2 is an introduction to the language of modern differential geometry. A final chapter (chapter IV) is devoted to fibre bundles and their applications to physics. Exercises are provided to amplify the text material.

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.

This edition of the invaluable text Modern Differential Geometry for Physicists contains an additional chapter that introduces some of the basic ideas of general topology needed in differential geometry. A number of small corrections and additions have also been made. These lecture notes are the content of an introductory course on modern, coordinate-free differential geometry which is taken by first-year theoretical physics PhD students, or by students attending the one-year MSc course “Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces” at Imperial College. The book is concerned entirely with mathematics proper, although the emphasis and detailed topics have been chosen bearing in mind the way in which differential geometry is applied these days to modern theoretical physics. This includes not only the traditional area of general relativity but also the theory of Yang-Mills fields, nonlinear sigma models and other types of nonlinear field systems that feature in modern quantum field theory. The volume is divided into four parts: (i) introduction to general topology; (ii) introductory coordinate-free differential geometry; (iii) geometrical aspects of the theory of Lie groups and Lie group actions on manifolds; (iv) introduction to the theory of fibre bundles. In the introduction to differential geometry the author lays considerable stress on the basic ideas of “tangent space structure”, which he develops from several different points of view — some geometrical, others more algebraic. This is done with awareness of the difficulty which physics graduate students often experience when being exposed for the first time to the rather abstract ideas of differential geometry.

This book is divided into fourteen chapters, with 18 appendices as introduction to prerequisite topological and algebraic knowledge, etc. The first seven chapters focus on local analysis. This part can be used as a fundamental textbook for graduate students of theoretical physics. Chapters 8–10 discuss geometry on fibre bundles, which facilitates further reference for researchers. The last four chapters deal with the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, its generalization and its application, quantum anomaly, cohomology field theory and noncommutative geometry, giving the reader a glimpse of the frontier of current research in theoretical physics.

Covering subjects including manifolds, tensor fields, spinors, and differential forms, this textbook introduces geometrical topics useful in modern theoretical physics and mathematics. It develops understanding through over 1000 short exercises, and is suitable for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in physics, mathematics and engineering.

This book gives an outline of the developments of differential geometry and topology in the twentieth century, especially those which will be closely related to new discoveries in theoretical physics.