Geometric field models
Paul Klinger's notes on Lie groups
Maximilian Thaller's notes on connections

We will use the following books and papers, in chronological order:

Isham, Chris J. Modern differential geometry for physicists. Second edition. World Scientific Lecture Notes in Physics, 61. World Scientific Publishing Co., Inc., River Edge, NJ, 1999. xiv+289 pp. ISBN: 981-02-3555-0

Misner, Charles W. Harmonic maps as models for physical theories. Phys. Rev. D (3) 18 (1978), no. 12, 4510–4524.

Cho, Y. M. Higher-dimensional unifications of gravitation and gauge theories. J. Mathematical Phys. 16 (1975), no. 10, 2029–2035.

Manton, Nicholas; Sutcliffe, Paul Topological solitons. Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004. xii+493 pp. ISBN: 0-521-83836-3

 

Further reading:

Jackiw, R.; Lee, Kimyeong; Weinberg, Erick J. Self-dual Chern-Simons solitons. Phys. Rev. D (3) 42 (1990), no. 10, 3488–3499.

Jackiw, R.; Weinberg, Erick J. Self-dual Chern-Simons vortices. Phys. Rev. Lett. 64 (1990), no. 19, 2234–2237.

Jackiw, R. Quantum meaning of classical field theory. Rev. Modern Phys. 49 (1977), no. 3, 681–706.

An Exact Classical Solution for the 't Hooft Monopole and the Julia-Zee Dyon
M.K. Prasad, Charles M. Sommerfield (Yale U.). Jun 1975. 8 pp.
Published in Phys.Rev.Lett. 35 (1975) 760-762
COO-3075-114
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.35.760

Freed, Daniel S.; Uhlenbeck, Karen K. Instantons and four-manifolds. Second edition. Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Publications, 1. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1991. xxii+194 pp. ISBN: 0-387-97377-X

The multifaceted skyrmion. Edited by Gerald E. Brown and Mannque Rho. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., Hackensack, NJ, 2010. xxii+438 pp. ISBN: 978-981-4280-69-3; 981-4280-69-0

P. Michor, Topics in differential geometry [www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/dgbook.pdf]