Topological field theories
WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks · 2009
THEORETICAL high-energy physics throws up, every few years, newer and more complex formulations which we hapless soldiers in the field have to contend with and absorb.In the last five years, beginning with the reincarnation of String theory, life on this treadmill has become even more frantic, with an explosion of new theoretical structures and concepts.One such very recent concept is that of a Topological Field Theory (TFT).This is not a topic that lends itself easily to a simple " semi-technical level introduction.It is fairly abstract, dealing with ideas that at first sight appear to be more mathematical than physical, and was not designed a priori to model any specific experimental phenomenon.Nevertheless, it is a very interesting subject at the conceptual level and, like other elegant theoretical structures born ahead of their times, may eventually end up having important applications.Besides, TFT is a part of the larger subject of quantum field theories in curved space-time, which are already playing a major role in theoretical physics at both the microscopic and cosmological scales.We will therefore attempt to provide here some background on quantum field theories in curved spaces, sufficient for giving, at the end, a glimpse of what TFT is.2