Description
Book SynopsisSuitable for graduate students, this book presents detailed derivations of cosmological and black hole processes in which curved spacetime plays a key role. It explains how such processes in the early universe leave observable consequences today, and how these processes uncover deep connections between gravitation and elementary particles.
Trade Review"While readers of Birrel and Davies will certainly like this new book, newcomers and students will appreciate the breadth and the style of a treatise written by two well known scientists who have dedicated their lives to the understanding of the treatment of quantum fields in a fixed gravitational background." Massimo Giovannini, CERN Courier
"This is an interesting book which contains a lot of material about an important topic of theoretical physics." Michael Keyl, Mathematical Reviews
Table of ContentsPreface; Conventions and notation; 1. Quantum fields in Minkowski spacetime; 2. Basics of quantum fields in curved spacetimes; 3. Expectation values quadratic in fields; 4. Particle creation by black holes; 5. The one-loop effective action; 6. The effective action: non-gauge theories; 7. The effective action: gauge theories; Appendixes; References; Index.
