GAUGE THEORIES OF GRAVITATION: A READER WITH COMMENTARIES (Classification of Gauge Theories of Gravity)

In the last five decades, the gauge approach to gravity has represented a research area of increasing importance for our understanding of the physics of fundamental interactions. A full clarification of the gauge dynamics of gravity is expected to be the last missing link to the hidden structure of a consistent unification of all the fundamental interactions, based on the gauge principle. The aim of the present reprint volume, with commentaries by Milutin Blagojevi and Friedrich W Hehl, is to introduce graduate and advanced undergraduate students of theoretical or mathematical physics, or any other interested researcher, to the field of classical gauge theories of gravity.

This is not just an ordinary reprint volume; it is a guide to the literature on gauge theories of gravity. The reader is encouraged first to study the introductory commentaries and to become familiar with the basic content of the reprints and related ideas, then he/she can choose to read a specific reprint or reprints, and after that he/she should return again to the text and explore the additional literature, etc. The interaction is intended to be more complex than just starting with commentaries and ending with reprints.

Readership: Advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers in physics, general relativity, and quantum gravity.