Classical and Quantum Dynamics of Constrained Hamiltonian Systems

Book excerpt: This book is an introduction to the field of constrained Hamiltonian systems and their quantization, a topic which is of central interest to theoretical physicists who wish to obtain a deeper understanding of the quantization of gauge theories, such as describing the fundamental interactions in nature. Beginning with the early work of Dirac, the book covers the main developments in the field up to more recent topics, such as the field-antifield formalism of Batalin and Vilkovisky, including a short discussion of how gauge anomalies may be incorporated into this formalism. The book is comprehensive and well-illustrated with examples, enables graduate students to follow the literature on this subject without much problems, and to perform research in this field.