The continuous trend towards higher and higher laser intensities has opened the way to new physical regimes and advanced applications of laser-plasma interactions, thus stimulating novel connections with ultrafast optics, astrophysics, particle physics, and biomedical applications. This book is primarily oriented towards students and young researchers who need to acquire rapidly a basic knowled…
This book provides a completely revised and expanded version of the previous classic edition ‘General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics’. In Part I the foundations of general relativity are thoroughly developed, while Part II is devoted to tests of general relativity and many of its applications. Binary pulsars – our best laboratories for general relativity – are studied in consi…
‘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 physical, astrophysical and cosmological applications, updated to the issues of contemporary research and observ…
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 the…
Special relativity is the basis of many fields in modern physics: particle physics, quantum field theory, high-energy astrophysics, etc. This theory is presented here by adopting a four-dimensional point of view from the start. An outstanding feature of the book is that it doesn’t restrict itself to inertial frames but considers accelerated and rotating observers. It is thus possible to treat…
This book is an introduction to the theories of Special and General Relativity. The target audience are physicists, engineers and applied scientists who are looking for an understandable introduction to the topic - without too much new mathematics. The fundamental equations of Einstein's theory of Special and General Relativity are derived using matrix calculus, without the help of tensors. Thi…
One of the open challenges in fundamental physics is to combine Einstein's theory of general relativity with the principles of quantum mechancis. In this thesis, the question is raised whether metric quantum gravity could be fundamental in the spirit of Steven Weinberg's seminal asymptotic safety conjecture, and if so, what are the consequences for the physics of small, possibly Planck-size bla…
This book offers an essential bridge between college-level introductions and advanced graduate-level books on special relativity. It begins at an elementary level, presenting and discussing the basic concepts normally covered in college-level works, including the Lorentz transformation. Subsequent chapters introduce the four-dimensional worldview implied by the Lorentz transformations, mixi…
This book explains the theory of special and general relativity in detail, without digressions such as information on Einstein's life or the historical background. However, complicated calculations are replaced with figures and thought experiments, the text being formulated in such a way that the reader will be able to understand the gist intuitively. The first part of the book focuses on the e…
This is the sixth volume in a series of books on the general topics of supersymmetry, supergravity, black holes and the attractor mechanism. The present volume is based upon lectures held in May 2011 at the INFN-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati School on Black Objects in Supergravity (BOSS2011), directed by Stefano Bellucci, with the participation of prestigious lecturers, including G. Lopes Ca…