Lectures on gravitation

Based on over a decade of advanced teaching in general relativity, this text provides a comprehensive and concise guide to modern gravitation theory tailored for graduate students and researchers. Beginning with the representation of the Lorentz group, this volume delivers a rigorous overview of essential mathematical tools before diving into fundamental aspects of gravity, including the action principle, the Hamiltonian formulation, and the coupling to the Dirac field. Key features include a detailed treatment of quantization in external gravitational fields, the derivation of Hawking radiation in 4D space, and a rigorous discussion of the positive energy theorem and gravitational waves. It also provides an introduction to supergravity. The connection to non−abelian gauge theories is always kept in the foreground.

Pietro Menotti is Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at the University of Pisa, Italy. After graduating at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Pisa, he conducted research at University College London (1960−62), CERN Geneva (1969−70), Princeton University, and SLAC (1972−74). Throughout his career, Professor Menotti has served as a full professor at the University of Cagliari, University of Naples, and since 1980 at the University of Pisa, where he taught quantum mechanics and gravitation for over three decades. His main research interests are quantum field theory, general relativity, Hawking radiation, lattice gauge theories and conformal field theory. He is the author of over 130 scientific papers over 40 of which are devoted to the theory of gravitation.