This book has grown out of lectures held at a summer school on cosmology, in response to an ever increasing need for an advanced textbook that addresses the needs of both postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers from various disciplines ranging from mathematical physi…
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, adv…
The author develops a novel analysis method for QCD sum rules (QCDSR) by applying the maximum entropy method (MEM) to arrive at an analysis with less artificial assumptions than previously held. This is a first-time accomplishment in the field. In this thesis, a reformed MEM for…
This Brief presents an introduction to the theory of the renormalization group in the context of quantum field theories of relevance to particle physics. Emphasis is placed on gaining a physical understanding of the running of the couplings. The Wilsonian version of the renormal…
'Gravity, a Geometrical Course' presents general relativity (GR) in a systematic and exhaustive way, covering three aspects that are homogenized into a single texture: i) the mathematical, geometrical foundations, exposed in a self consistent contemporary formalism, ii) the main…
'Gravity, a Geometrical Course' presents general relativity (GR) in a systematic and exhaustive way, covering three aspects that are homogenized into a single texture: i) the mathematical, geometrical foundations, exposed in a self consistent contemporary formalism, ii) the main…
This lecture-based, concise primer introduces and summarize basic features associated with dynamical breaking of the electroweak symmetry in elementary particle physics. In particular, the phase diagram of strongly-coupled theories as function of the number of colors, flavors an…
Gaining a theoretical understanding of the properties of ultra-relativistic dense matter has been one of the most important and challenging goals in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In this thesis, the author analyzes dense quark matter in QCD with gauge group SU(2) using low-energ…
This book is based upon lectures presented in the summer of 2009 at the INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati School on Attractor Mechanism, directed by Stefano Bellucci. The symposium included such prestigious lecturers as S. Ferrara, G. Dall'Agata, J.F. Morales, J. Simón and M…
This thesis exhibits a range of applications of combinatoric methods to string theory. The concepts and techniques used in the counting of ribbon graphs, the theory of finite groups, and the construction of cell complexes can give powerful methods and interesting insights into t…
We explore dualities and solution-generating transformations in various contexts. Our focus is on the T-duality invariant form of supergravity known as double fi eld theory, the SL(5)-invariant M-theory extended geometry, and metrics dual under the fluid/gravity correspondence t…
In an introductory chapter, a summary of the construction of string theories is given, for both the bosonic string and the RNS superstring. Relevant mathematical technology is introduced, including super-Riemann surfaces. Conformal field theory is discussed and BRST quantization…
There has been great progress in recent years in the understanding of the mathematical structure of scattering amplitudes in Quantum Field Theory as well as the development of powerful methods for their calculation, particularly in the arena of N = 4 Super Yang-Mills where hidde…
In the past few years, on-shell analytic methods have played a pivotal role in gauge theory calculations. Since the initial success of these methods in Standard Model physics, considerable activity has led to development and application in supersymmetric gauge theories. In parti…
In this thesis we explore the finite N spectrum of BPS operators in four-dimensional supersymmetric conformal field theories (CFT), which have dual AdS gravitational descriptions. In the first part we analyze the spectrum of chiral operators in the free limit of quiver gauge the…
In this thesis the recently developed duality covariant approach to string and Mtheory is investigated. In this formalism the U-duality symmetry of M-theory or Tduality symmetry of Type II string theory becomes manifest upon extending coordinates that describe a background. The …