Quantum Gauge Theories : A True Ghost Story

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Summary: mathematical consistent review of gauge theories
Review: Common textbooks on quantum (gauge) theories usually refer to 'renormalization' as to be essential for the physical interpretation of these theories. prof. scharf gives like in his first book (finite quantum electrodynmaics) a unique but mathematical consistent formulation of the matter. no undefined nor infinite quantities appear. instead only finite 'normalization' constants have to be used as consequences of ambiguities within the 'splitting'-procedure of distributions.
a clear description then is given - without refering to neither the canonical nor the path-integral formalism - how to 'translate' the clasical gauge-freedom of the vector-potential to quantum fields. here the well-known 'ghost-fields'
(Geisterfelder in german) appear.
the author adds short but elegant discussions of massless (pure gluon-interaction) and massive (standard-model) gauge-fields. in a last chapter even spin-2 fields necessary for quantum-gravitation are presented.
i hope that this book will serve as a bridge between the various 'phenomenological' descriptions of the matter given in most textbooks and the more mathematical ones which in most cases are hard to accees for ordinary physicists.

A.P. Schaffarczyk
University of Applied Sciences
Kiel, Germany