‡Mathematical Institute, Academy of Sciences, ˇ Zitná 25, 115 67 Prague 1, Czech Republic. We investigate Lorentzian spacetimes where all zeroth and first order curvature invariants vanish and discuss how this class differs from the one where all curvature invariants vanish (VSI). We show that for VSI spacetimes all components of the Riemann tensor and its derivatives up to some fixed order can be made arbitrarily small. We discuss this in more detail by way of examples.

In this work we study Berwald spacetimes and their vacuum dynamics, where the latter are based on a Finsler generalization of the Einstein's equations derived from an action on the unit tangent bundle. In particular, we consider a specific class of spacetimes which are non-flat generalizations of the very special relativity (VSR) line element, to which we refer as very general relativity (VGR). We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the VGR line element to be of Berwald type. We present two novel examples with the corresponding vacuum field equations: a Finslerian generalization of vanishing scalar invariant (VSI) spacetimes in Einstein's gravity as well as the most general homogeneous and isotropic VGR spacetime.

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Abstract. We show that the higher-dimensional vanishing scalar invariant (VSI) spacetimes with fluxes and dilaton are solutions of type IIB supergravity, and we argue that they are exact solutions in string theory. We also discuss the supersymmetry properties of VSI spacetimes.

We study a class of constant scalar invariant (CSI) spacetimes, which belong to the higher-dimensional Kundt class, that are solutions of supergravity. We review the known CSI supergravity solutions in this class and we explicitly present a number of new exact CSI supergravity solutions, some of which are Einstein.

Most of the known models describing the fundamental interactions have a gauge freedom. In the standard path integral, it is necessary to "fix the gauge" in order to avoid integrating over unphysical degrees of freedom. Gauge independence might then become a tricky issue, especially when the structure of the gauge symmetries is intricate. In the modern approach to this question, it is BRST invariance that effectively implements gauge invariance. This set of lectures briefly reviews some key ideas underlying the BRST-antifield formalism, which yields a systematic procedure to path-integrate any type of gauge system, while (usually) manifestly preserving spacetime covariance. The quantized theory possesses a global invariance under what is known as BRST transformation, which is nilpotent of order two. The cohomology of the BRST differential is the central element that controls the physics. Its relationship with the observables is sketched and explained. How anomalies appear in the "quantum master equation" of the antifield formalism is also discussed. These notes are based on lectures given by MH at the 10 th Saalburg Summer School on Modern Theoretical Methods from the 30 th of August to the 10 th of September, 2004 in Wolfersdorf, Germany and were prepared by AF and AM. The exercises which were discussed at the school are also included.

published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal.If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User

One of the approaches in diffusion tensor imaging is to consider a Riemannian metric given by the inverse diffusion tensor. Such a metric is used for geodesic tractography and connectivity analysis in white matter. We propose a metric tensor given by the adjugate rather than the previously proposed inverse diffusion tensor. The adjugate metric can also be employed in the sharpening framework. Tractography experiments on synthetic and real brain diffusion data show improvement for high-curvature tracts and in the vicinity of isotropic diffusion regions relative to most results for inverse (sharpened) diffusion tensors, and especially on real data. In addition, adjugate tensors are shown to be more robust to noise.