Giampiero Esposito

This book is addressed to mathematics and physics students who want to develop an interdisciplinary view of mathematics, from the age of Riemann, Poincaré and Darboux to basic tools of modern mathematics. It enables them to acquire the sensibility necessary for the formulation and solution of difficult problems, with an emphasis on concepts, rigour and creativity. It consists of eight self-contained parts: ordinary differential equations; linear elliptic equations; calculus of variations; linear and non-linear hyperbolic equations; parabolic equations; Fuchsian functions and non-linear equations; the functional equations of number theory; pseudo-differential operators and pseudo-differential equations. The author leads readers through the original papers and introduces new concepts, with a selection of topics and examples that are of high pedagogical value.

From Ordinary to Partial Differential Equations

A clear, concise and up-to-date introduction to the theory of the Dirac operator and its wide range of applications in theoretical physics for graduate students and researchers.

Dirac Operators and Spectral Geometry

This book is aimed at theoretical and mathematical physicists and mathematicians interested in modern gravitational physics. I have thus tried to use language familiar to readers working on classical and quantum gravity, paying attention both to difficult calculations and to existence theorems, and discussing in detail the current literature. The first aim of the book is to describe recent work on the problem of boundary conditions in one-loop quantum cosmology. The motivation of this research was to under stand whether supersymmetric theories are one-loop finite in the presence of boundaries, with application to the boundary-value problemsoccurring in quantum cosmology. Indeed, higher-loop calculations in the absence of boundaries are already available in the litera ture, showing that supergravity is not finite. I believe, however, that one-loop calculations in the presence of boundaries are more fundamental, in that they provide a more direct check of the inconsistency of supersymmetric quantum cosmology from the perturbative point of view. It therefore appears that higher-order calculations are not strictly needed, if the one-loop test already yields negative results. Even though the question is not yet settled, this research has led to many interesting, new applications of areas of theoretical and mathematical physics such as twistor theory in flat space, self-adjointness theory, the generalized Riemann zeta-function, and the theory of boundary counterterms in super gravity. I have also compared in detail my work with results by other authors, explaining, whenever possible, the origin of different results, the limits of my work and the unsolved problems.

Quantum Gravity, Quantum Cosmology and Lorentzian Geometries

Main section headings: Ideas and Problems in Quantum Gravity; On Ellipticity and Quantum Gravity; Non-Local Boundary Data in Quantum Gravity; Non-Locality and Ellipticity for Gauge Theories; New Kernels in Quantum Gravity; Quantum Gravity from First Principles; Quantum Gravity and Spectral Geometry; Bibliography; Index.

Quantum Gravity in Four Dimensions

Giuseppe Marmo

George Sudarshan

This 2004 textbook provides a pedagogical introduction to the formalism, foundations and applications of quantum mechanics. Part I covers the basic material which is necessary to understand the transition from classical to wave mechanics. Topics include classical dynamics, with emphasis on canonical transformations and the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, the Cauchy problem for the wave equation, Helmholtz equation and eikonal approximation, introduction to spin, perturbation theory and scattering theory. The Weyl quantization is presented in Part II, along with the postulates of quantum mechanics. Part III is devoted to topics such as statistical mechanics and black-body radiation, Lagrangian and phase-space formulations of quantum mechanics, and the Dirac equation. This book is intended for use as a textbook for beginning graduate and advanced undergraduate courses. It is self-contained and includes problems to aid the reader's understanding.

An Introduction to the Formalism, Foundations and Applications

From Classical to Quantum Mechanics

Matthias Lesch

Bernhelm Booß-Bavnbek

Aside from the obvious statement that it should be a theory capable of unifying general relativity and quantum field theory, not much is known about the true nature of quantum gravity. New ideas - and there are many of them for this is an exciting field of research - often diverge to a degree where it seems impossible to decide in which of the many possible direction(s) the ongoing developments should be further sustained. The division of the book in two (overlapping) parts reflects the duality between the physical vision and the mathematical construction. The former is represented by tutorial reviews on non-commutative geometry, on space-time discretization and renormalization and on gauge field path integrals. The latter one by lectures on cohomology, on stochastic geometry and on mathematical tools for the effective action in quantum gravity. The book will benefit everyone working or entering the field of quantum gravity research.

Giampiero Esposito

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