This monograph gives a detailed and pedagogical account of the geometry of rigid superspace and supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories. While the core of the text is concerned with the classical theory, the quantization and anomaly problem are briefly discussed following a comprehensive introduction to BRS differential algebras and their field theoretical applications. Among the treated topics are invariant forms and vector fields on superspace, the matrix-representation of the super-Poincaré group, invariant connections on reductive homogeneous spaces and the supermetric approach. Various aspects of the subject are discussed for the first time in textbook and are consistently presented in a unified geometric formalism. Requiring essentially no background on supersymmetry and only a basic knowledge of differential geometry, this text will serve as a mathematically lucid introduction to supersymmetric gauge theories.

This monograph gives a detailed and pedagogical account of the geometry of rigid superspace and supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories. While the core of the text is concerned with the classical theory, the quantization and anomaly problem are briefly discussed following a comprehensive introduction to BRS differential algebras and their field theoretical applications. Among the treated topics are invariant forms and vector fields on superspace, the matrix-representation of the super-Poincaré group, invariant connections on reductive homogeneous spaces and the supermetric approach. Various aspects of the subject are discussed for the first time in textbook and are consistently presented in a unified geometric formalism. Requiring essentially no background on supersymmetry and only a basic knowledge of differential geometry, this text will serve as a mathematically lucid introduction to supersymmetric gauge theories.

Neutrinos play an intriguing role in modern physics linking central questions of particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics. The contributions in this book reflect the present status of neutrino physics with emphasis on non-accelerator or beyond-accelerator experiments. Since a nonvanishing neutrino mass would yield an important boundary condition for GUT, SUSY or Superstring models and since neutrinos are the best candidates for dark matter in the universe, the many efforts to look for a neutrino mass, ranging from neutrino oscillation experiments using reactors, accelerators or the sun as neutrino sources, to tritium decay experiments and the search for neutrinoless double beta decay, are described in some detail. One of the sections is devoted to neutrinos from collapsing stars, including the supernova SN 1987 A. Possibilities for detecting cosmological neutrinos are discussed and an outlook to future experiments is given.

The book is devoted to the study of the geometrical and topological structure of gauge theories. It consists of the following three building blocks:- Geometry and topology of fibre bundles,- Clifford algebras, spin structures and Dirac operators,- Gauge theory.Written in the style of a mathematical textbook, it combines a comprehensive presentation of the mathematical foundations with a discussion of a variety of advanced topics in gauge theory.The first building block includes a number of specific topics, like invariant connections, universal connections, H-structures and the Postnikov approximation of classifying spaces.Given the great importance of Dirac operators in gauge theory, a complete proof of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem is presented. The gauge theory part contains the study of Yang-Mills equations (including the theory of instantons and the classical stability analysis), the discussion of various models with matter fields (including magnetic monopoles, the Seiberg-Witten model and dimensional reduction) and the investigation of the structure of the gauge orbit space. The final chapter is devoted to elements of quantum gauge theory including the discussion of the Gribov problem, anomalies and the implementation of the non-generic gauge orbit strata in the framework of Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory.The book is addressed both to physicists and mathematicians. It is intended to be accessible to students starting from a graduate level.