Supersymmetry In Mathematics And Physics

The book is the first full-size Encyclopedia which simultaneously covers such well-established and modern subjects as quantum field theory, supersymmetry, supergravity, M-theory, black holes and quantum gravity, noncommutative geometry, representation theory, categories and quantum groups, and their generalizations. The extraordinary historical part "the SUSY story," more than 700 authored articles from more than 250 high-level experts (including Nobel Prize Winner Gerard 't Hooft), a detailed (50 pages) Subject/Article three level index and an Author index, make the SUSY Encyclopedia an outstanding and indispensable book on the desk of researchers, experts, Ph.D. students, specialists and professionals in modern methods of theoretical and mathematical physics.

An special feature of the book is the treatment in depth of the theory of spinors in all dimensions and signatures, which is the basis of all developments of supergeometry both in physics and mathematics, especially in quantum field theory and supergravity."--Jacket.

Supersymmetry was created by the physicists in the 1970's to give a unified treatment of fermions and bosons, the basic constituents of matter. Since then its mathematical structure has been recognized as that of a new development in geometry, and mathematicians have busied themselves with exploring this aspect. This volume collects recent advances in this field, both from a physical and a mathematical point of view, with an accent on a rigorous treatment of the various questions raised.

In this work the question whether noncommutative geometry allows for supersymmetric theories is addressed. Noncommutative geometry has seen remarkable applications in high energy physics, viz. the geometrical interpretation of the Standard Model, however such a question has not been answered in a conclusive way so far.The book starts with a systematic analysis of the possibilities for so-called almost-commutative geometries on a 4-dimensional, flat background to exhibit not only a particle content that is eligible for supersymmetry, but also have a supersymmetric action. An approach is proposed in which the basic `building blocks' of potentially supersymmetric theories and the demands for their action to be supersymmetric are identified. It is then described how a novel kind of soft supersymmetry breaking Lagrangian arises naturally from the spectral action. Finally, the above formalism is applied to explore the existence of a noncommutative version of the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model.This book is intended for mathematical/theoretical physicists with an interest in the applications of noncommutative geometry to supersymmetric field theories.

A brief introductory description of the new physical and mathematical ideas involved in formulating supersymmetric theories. The basic ideas are worked out in low space dimensionalities and techniques where the formulae do not obscure the concepts.

to our own also needs to be understood. Such unification may also require that the supersymmetry group possess irreducible representations with infinite reductiori on the Poincare subgroup, to accommodate an infinite set of particles. Such possibilities were 5 envisaged long ago and have recently reappeared in Kaluza-Klein . 6 d' . th 7 S . l' th supergraVlty an m superstnng eory. upersymmetry Imp Ies at forces that are mediated by bose exchange must be complemented by forces that are due to the exchange of fermions. The masslessness of neutrinos is suggestive-we continue to favor the idea that neutrinos are fundamental to weak interactions, that they will finally play a more central role than the bit part assigned to them in Weinberg-Salam theory. There seems to be little room for doubting that supersymmetry is badly broken-so where should one be looking for the first tangible manifestations of it? It is remarkable that the successes that can be legitimately claimed for supersymmetry are all in the domain of massless particles and fields. Supergravity is not renormalizable, but it is an improvement (in this respect) over ordinary quantum gravity. Finite super Yang-Mills theories are not yet established, but there is now a strong concensus that they soon will be. In both cases massless fields are involved in an essential way.

All papers have been peer-reviewed. This volume includes the contributions to the International Workshop on Geometry and Physics: Special Metrics and Supersymmetry, held at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao (Spain), from May 29 to 31, 2008. The topics covered by the volume deal with leading aspects of algebraic and differential geometry with special emphasis to their potential applications in supersymmetry and string theories. The areas covered by the proceedings are algebraic geometry, differential geometry and mathematical physics. In greater detail, they cover outstanding topics such as homological mirror symmetry, generalized Hodge theory, coassociative submanifolds, special geometric structures, geometric structures, Killing spinors, torsion geometry, string theory, supersymmetry and T-duality, among others.

Supersymmetry is a highly active area of considerable interest among physicists and mathematicians. It is not only fascinating in its own right, but there is also indication that it plays a fundamental role in the physics of elementary particles and gravitation. The purpose of the book is to lay down the foundations of the subject, providing the reader with a comprehensive introduction to the language and techniques, as well as detailed proofs and many clarifying examples. This book is aimed ideally at second-year graduate students. After the first three introductory chapters, the text is divided into two parts: the theory of smooth supermanifolds and Lie supergroups, including the Frobenius theorem, and the theory of algebraic superschemes and supergroups. There are three appendices. The first introduces Lie superalgebras and representations of classical Lie superalgebras, the second collects some relevant facts on categories, sheafification of functors and commutative algebra, and the third explains the notion of Frechet space in the super context.