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Lectures on the Infrared Structure of Gravity and Gauge Theory
A short, graduate-level synthesis of recent developments in theoretical physics, from a pioneer in the fieldLectures on the Infrared Structure of Gravity and Gauge Theory presents an accessible, graduate-level synthesis of a frontier research area in theoretical physics. Based on a popular Harvard University course taught by the author, this book gives a concise introduction to recent discoveries concerning the structure of gravity and gauge theory at very long distances. These discoveries unite three disparate but well-developed subjects in physics. The first subject is the soft theorems, which were found by particle physicists in the 1950s to control the behavior of low-energy photons and are essential for all collider predictions. The second subject is asymptotic symmetries, found by general relativists in the 1960s to provide a surprising, infinite number of exact relations between distinct physical phenomena. The third subject is the memory effect, the measurement of which is sought in upcoming gravitational wave observations. An exploration of the physical and mathematical equivalence of these three subjects has provided a powerful new perspective on old results and led to a plethora of new results, involving symmetries of QED, gluon scattering amplitudes, flat-space holography in quantum gravity, black hole information, and beyond. Uniquely connective and cutting-edge, Lectures on the Infrared Structure of Gravity and Gauge Theory takes students and scholars to the forefront of new developments in the discipline.
Materials are presented in a "lecture notes" style with problem sets includedConcise and accessible pedagogical approachTopics include soft theorems, the memory effect, asymptotic symmetries with applications to QED, Yang-Mills theory, quantum gravity, and black holes
Materials are presented in a "lecture notes" style with problem sets includedConcise and accessible pedagogical approachTopics include soft theorems, the memory effect, asymptotic symmetries with applications to QED, Yang-Mills theory, quantum gravity, and black holes
- GenresPhysics
200 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 6, 2018
25 people want to read
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July 27, 2021
Finished first reading; need to re-read again. The overall presentation is smooth and engaging, but I am surprised by how little I managed to extract out of it clearly (beyond the explicit argument that there is infinitely many conserved quantities associated to BMS symmetry). It must be either (1) I lack standard/expected knowledge of Bondi-Sachs formalism and soft graviton theorems, or (2) the book simply requires more background knowledge than is claimed in the preface, namely standard general relativity and QFT. Actually (1) and (2) are in some sense the same, except that I emphasize more of personal ineptitude for (1) than the writer's demand (2).
Also, across the text he threw a lot of technical jargon which as far as I can tell is either not basic or not obvious given the assumed prerequisite. For example, even assuming basic canonical formalism in field theory, I don't think it is clear at all what zero modes associated to symplectic form are (especially since the cotangent bundle is not finite dimensional, unlike the classical mechanics case). Again, I think the most sensible conclusion is that there are simply a lot more background required: I don't think this is something readable for someone who has read Wald's General Relativity and Peskin/Schroeder's QFT without further input (e.g. via the reader's research related to this subject, their supervisors - perhaps Strominger himself, or already extensive reading of some papers e.g. Weinberg's soft graviton theorem or the recent papers on this subject).
The good thing, for sure, is the existence of an actual list of exercises, something hard to come by for cutting edge research. I went through this book once hoping for a better second reading when I plan for a study group next term in graduate school, so the first reading certainly informed me about the scope of the subject and how far I should stray from the book just to get the basic messages across.
And yes, I liked his first demonstration of infinity of conserved charges for *classical* electromagnetism in *flat space*, showing how we are already missing something from standard physics in second year undergraduate. This was perhaps the most illuminating piece of the whole book, at least for first (quick) reading.
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Finished second round, stopped at Chapter 6. I think I get a clearer picture of what the people in the field are trying to do now. Unfortunately, this book upon second reading turns out to be less satisfactory as a set of lecture notes. In fact, some chapters e.g. the massive QED case in Chapter 2 lacks details in somewhat important ways; porting a large bulk of the results from the paper would have been more productive actually. The book was actually very good at delivering content at Chapter 2 (first half) and Chapter 5, but the rest are either sparse (i.e. mostly referring the reader to the papers) or too convoluted (which defeats the point of writing this as lecture notes).
All in all, this book' attempt to bring the idea to broader community is commendable. The exercises were very helpful, and that's a big plus. It is just that a reader finishing the book does not feel like they finished a set of lecture notes due to the gap or redirection to papers.
Also, across the text he threw a lot of technical jargon which as far as I can tell is either not basic or not obvious given the assumed prerequisite. For example, even assuming basic canonical formalism in field theory, I don't think it is clear at all what zero modes associated to symplectic form are (especially since the cotangent bundle is not finite dimensional, unlike the classical mechanics case). Again, I think the most sensible conclusion is that there are simply a lot more background required: I don't think this is something readable for someone who has read Wald's General Relativity and Peskin/Schroeder's QFT without further input (e.g. via the reader's research related to this subject, their supervisors - perhaps Strominger himself, or already extensive reading of some papers e.g. Weinberg's soft graviton theorem or the recent papers on this subject).
The good thing, for sure, is the existence of an actual list of exercises, something hard to come by for cutting edge research. I went through this book once hoping for a better second reading when I plan for a study group next term in graduate school, so the first reading certainly informed me about the scope of the subject and how far I should stray from the book just to get the basic messages across.
And yes, I liked his first demonstration of infinity of conserved charges for *classical* electromagnetism in *flat space*, showing how we are already missing something from standard physics in second year undergraduate. This was perhaps the most illuminating piece of the whole book, at least for first (quick) reading.
---------------------------------
Finished second round, stopped at Chapter 6. I think I get a clearer picture of what the people in the field are trying to do now. Unfortunately, this book upon second reading turns out to be less satisfactory as a set of lecture notes. In fact, some chapters e.g. the massive QED case in Chapter 2 lacks details in somewhat important ways; porting a large bulk of the results from the paper would have been more productive actually. The book was actually very good at delivering content at Chapter 2 (first half) and Chapter 5, but the rest are either sparse (i.e. mostly referring the reader to the papers) or too convoluted (which defeats the point of writing this as lecture notes).
All in all, this book' attempt to bring the idea to broader community is commendable. The exercises were very helpful, and that's a big plus. It is just that a reader finishing the book does not feel like they finished a set of lecture notes due to the gap or redirection to papers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review