Jose M. Mourao

This monograph presents in detail the reduction method for studying the unification of fundamental actions. The mathematical (differential geometrical) methods make extensive use of Lie Groups and the concept of homogeneous spaces. The main topic of the book is the dimensional reduction of pure Yang-Mills theories. A rather complete analysis of the structure of the scalar field potential is given and a general procedure for solving the equations of spontaneous compactification within Einstein-Yang-Mills systems is presented. The authors also discuss gravity and theories with fermions included and they review attempts to construct realistic models. The book presents the basic ideas and the calculations in detail and should be of interest to researchers and graduate students in mathematical physics.