(Super)-Gravities Beyond 4 Dimensions
Abstract
Description
These lectures are intended as a broad introduction to Chern Simons gravity and supergravity. The motivation for these theories lies in the desire to have a gauge invariant action -in the sense of fiber bundles- in more than three dimensions, which could provide a firm ground for constructing a quantum theory of the gravitational field. The case of Chern-Simons gravity and its supersymmetric extension for all odd D is presented. No analogous construction is available in even dimensions.
54 pages, 5 figures. Lectures given at the 2001 Summer School "Geometric and Topological Methods for Quantum Field Theory", Villa de Leyva, Colombia, June 2001. Several typos and editorial mistakes corrected, references added
54 pages, 5 figures. Lectures given at the 2001 Summer School "Geometric and Topological Methods for Quantum Field Theory", Villa de Leyva, Colombia, June 2001. Several typos and editorial mistakes corrected, references added