Integrative teaching
Ciclo Di Seminari
Exercises
Examination procedure
Written and oral exam
Prerequisites
IV, V year of Master, Ph.D.
Syllabus
Introduction to (extended) supersymmetry and the superHiggs effect. Two important non-linear multiplets: Volkov-Akulov and Born-Infeld. N=1 supergravity in D=4 and its matter couplings. Duality symmetries for interacting fields. Supergravity in D=10,11 and some key compactifications. Introduction to String Theory. An introduction to general D=4 N=1 couplings in Supergravity. An introduction to the AdS/CFT correspondence. Prof. C. Angelantonj (U. Torino) will give a series of seminars (14 hours) devoted to String Theory, Prof. G. Dall'Agata (U. Padova) will give a series of seminars (14 hours) devoted to Supersymmetry and Supergravity, and Prof. A. Zaffaroni (U. Milano Bicocca) will give a series of seminars (14 hours) devoted to the AdS/CFT correspondence. I will give 14 hours, devoted to advanced aspects of surrent research.
Educational goals:
Providing the background to understand current symmetry-driven attempts to link gravity to the other Fundamental Interactions. The course includes a portion devoted to basic topics in Field Theory and Gravity and others, of a more advanced nature, devoted to Supersymmetry, Supergravity, String Theory and the AdS/CFT correspondence. The course is meant to allow interested students to start Thesis research on frontier topics in this area.
Bibliographical references
J. Wess and J. Bagger, "Supersymmetry and Supergravity" D.Z. Freedman and A. Van Proeyen, "Supergravity" C. Angelantonj and A. Sagnotti, ``Open strings,'' Phys. Rept. 371 (2002) 1. M. B. Green, J.H. Schwarz and E. Witten, ``Superstring Theory'', 2 vols., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press (1987); J. Polchinski, ``String theory'', 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press (1998); K. Becker, M. Becker and J.H. Schwarz, ``String theory and M-theory: A modern introduction'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press (2007).