Symmetries of generalized Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs fields

Abstract:
The classical interaction of gravitational and gauge fields in the form of Einstein-Yang-Mills theory has been studied quite extensively over the last almost 20 years. Most of the work was done in the spherically symmetric case and has led to some interesting new phenomena like the coloured black holes. In this talk, which is on joint work with Todd A. Oliynyk, the notion of spherical (and more general) symmetry groups on systems with quite general gauge and generalized Higgs fields will be discussed in the mathematical framework of group actions of principal and associated fibre bundles. The possible spherically symmetric models are classified and the corresponding field equations analyzed.