Publisher's Synopsis
The courses which comprise this book were designed to give the student a broad perspective on modern quantum field theory. Among the topics covered are: - an account of the quantum theory of the Yang-Mills field, anomalies, monopoles and o-vacua; - an exposition of background field and Green's function techniques applied to conservation laws, functional integration, curved backgrounds, nontrivial topologies and the effective action; - a description of supergravity and Kaluza-Klein theories; - supermanifolds, super Lie groups and super Hilbert spaces and theory of the topological and global aspects of quantum theory; - proofs of the positive energy theorems, and - accounts and analysis of episodes in the history of theoretical physics and quantum field theory.
