Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Theory of Gravitational Interactions

  • Textbook
  • © 2013

Overview

Authors:
  1. Maurizio Gasperini

    1. Department of Physics, University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Informal and self-contained style, with all required notions and techniques recalled and/or introduced
  • All computations explicitly carried out in the main text, leaving no “voids”
  • Presentation of the most formal steps as solved exercises at the end of each chapter
  • Coverage of frequently neglected topics crucial to modern theories of fundamental interactions
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics (ULNP)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-XVI
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Elementary Notions of Relativistic Field Theory

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 1-25

  3. Towards a Relativistic Theory of Gravity

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 27-38

  4. Tensor Calculus in a Riemann Manifold

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 39-64

  5. Maxwell Equations and Riemann Geometry

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 65-74

  6. Test Bodies and Signals in a Riemann Space–Time

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 75-87

  7. Geodesic Deviation and Curvature Tensor

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 89-107

  8. The Einstein Equations for the Gravitational Field

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 109-133

  9. The Weak-Field Approximation

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 135-150

  10. Gravitational Waves

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 151-176

  11. The Schwarzschild Solution

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 177-197

  12. The Kasner Solution

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 199-208

  13. Vierbeins and Lorentz Connection

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 209-224

  14. The Dirac Equation in a Gravitational Field

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 225-236

  15. Supersymmetry and Supergravity

    • Maurizio Gasperini
    Pages 237-261

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 263-322
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This reference textbook is an up-to-date and self-contained introduction to the theory of gravitational interactions. The first part of the book follows the traditional presentation of general relativity as a geometric theory of the macroscopic gravitational field. A second, advanced part then discusses the deep analogies (and differences) between a geometric theory of gravity and the gauge theories of the other fundamental interactions. This fills a gap which is present in the context of the traditional approach to general relativity, and which usually makes students puzzled about the role of gravity. The necessary notions of differential geometry are reduced to the minimum, leaving more room for those aspects of gravitational physics of current phenomenological and theoretical interest, such as the properties of gravitational waves, the gravitational interactions of spinors, and the supersymmetric generalization of the Einstein equations.
Theory of Gravitational Interactions willbe of particular value to undergraduate students pursuing a theoretical or astroparticle curriculum. It can also be used by those teaching related subjects, by PhD students and young researchers working in different scientific sectors but wishing to enlarge their spectrum of interests, and, in general, by all scholars interested in the modern aspects and problems of gravitational interaction.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Physics, University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Maurizio Gasperini

About the author

Maurizio Gasperini has already published 6 books with us. He is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Physics Department of the University of Bari, Italy. He is the author of more than 200 publications on gravitational theory, high-energy physics, and cosmology, and has twice won an "Award for Essays on Gravitation" from the Gravity Research Foundation (1996 and 1998). His former posts include a permanent position in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Turin, and three appointments as Scientific Associate at CERN, Theory Division (1993, 1996 and 2005). Here, in collaboration with Gabriele Veneziano, he formulated and developed an early-cosmology scenario based on the symmetries of string theory.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation