Description:
This reference book, which has found wide use as a text, provides an answer to the needs of graduate physical mathematics students and their teachers. The present edition is a thorough revision of the first, including a new chapter entitled ``Connections on Principle Fibre Bundles'' which includes sections on holonomy, characteristic classes, invariant curvature integrals and problems on the geometry of gauge fields, monopoles, instantons, spin structure and spin connections. Many paragraphs have been rewritten, and examples and exercises added to ease the study of several chapters. The index includes over 130 entries.Review Quotes: "The high quality of French mathematics, combined in this volume with the wide professional expertise of the authors in mathematical physics, has resulted in a work of great value. ... I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who aspires to participate in the exciting developments in modern elementary particle physics and relativity." --Physics Today
"The scope of the coverage is unusually wide and the material treated with more rigour than is customary in a mathematical physics text, because only then can the results be used correctly and fruitfully..." --Physikalische Berichte