This is an updated and expanded second edition of a successful and well-reviewed text presenting a detailed exposition of the modern theory of supermanifolds, including a rigorous account of the super-analogs of all the basic structures of ordinary manifold theory. The exposition opens with the theory of analysis over supernumbers (Grassman variables), Berezin integration, supervector spaces and the superdeterminant. This basic material is then applied to the theory of supermanifolds, with an account of super-analogs of Lie derivatives, connections, metric, curvature, geodesics, Killing flows, conformal groups, etc. The book goes on to discuss the theory of super Lie groups, super Lie algebras, and invariant geometrical structures on coset spaces. Complete descriptions are given of all the simple super Lie groups. The book then turns to applications. Chapter 5 contains an account of the Peierals bracket for superclassical dynamical systems, super Hilbert spaces, path integration for fe
The book shows how classical field theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum field theory are related. Thedescription is global from the outset. Quantization is explained using the Peierls bracket rather
The stated goal of DeWitt's two-volume work is to provide a fully relativistic, global view of spacetime from its origins, by using an approach that relies on the Peierls bracket, rather than the olde
Bryce DeWitt, a student of Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger, was himself one of the towering figures in 20th century physics, particularly renowned for his seminal contributions to quantum field theory