An Introduction to Twistor Theory
An Introduction to Twistor Theory
This book is an introduction to twistor theory and modern geometrical approaches to space-time structure at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level. It will be valuable also to the physicist as an introduction to some of the mathematics that has proved useful in these areas, and to the mathematician as an example of where sheaf cohomology and complex manifold theory can be used in physics.
- Hints and solutions added to exercises
- Fully revised original chapters
- New chapter on cohomolgical functionals
Reviews & endorsements
"...a quick introduction to some of the deeper problems of twistor theory....book is recommended to anyone seeking to get acquainted with the area." American Scientist
"One of the virtues of this new work is that it is concise and to the point, a property that should particularly commend it to hard-pressed graduate students. Of necessity this means that a certain amount of preliminary knowledge is assumed of the reader, but this does not extend beyond the contents of introductory courses in general relativity and difficult geometry. Anyone who has these prerequisites and who is interested in twistor theory could hardly do better than to start with this book." C.J. Isham, Contemporary Physics
"...a concise but nevertheless readable introduction to some of the main strands of twistor theory and would certainly be a suitable introduction for a graduate student with a background in general relativity or differential geometry." J. Vickers, Bulletin of London Mathematical Society
Product details
August 1994Paperback
9780521456890
192 pages
230 × 157 × 20 mm
0.394kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Review of tensor algebra
- 3. Lorentzian spinors at a point
- 4. Spinor fields
- 5. Compactified Minkowski space
- 6. The geometry of null congruences
- 7. The geometry of twistor space
- 8. Solving the zero rest mass equations I
- 9. Sheaf cohomology
- 10. Solving the zero rest mass equations II
- 11. The twisted photon and Yang–Mills constructions
- 12. The non-linear graviton
- 13. Penrose's quasi-local momentum
- 14. Cohomological functionals
- 15. Further developments and conclusion
- Appendix: The GHP equations.
