PHYS-427 Relativity and cosmology I

SUMMARY

The course is intended as an elementary introduction to General Relativity and its experimental tests.

CONTENT

Outline:

  • The equivalence principle
  • Introduction to differential geometry (covariant derivative, curvature, geodesics)
  • The Einstein equations and the Einstein-Hilbert action
  • Weak gravitational fields
  • Gravitational waves
  • The Schwarzschild solution and classical tests of GR
  • Black holes

References

  • Lecture notes (available on the moodle)
  • N. Straumann, General Relativity 2nd Edition, Graduate Texts in Physics, Springer Verlag, Berlin 2013.
  • R. Wald, General Relativity, Chicago University Press 1984.
  • S. Carroll, Spacetime and Geometry, Pearson 2014.
  • A. Zee, Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell, Princeton 2013.
  • Alan P. Lightman, William H. Press, Richard H. Price, Saul A. Teukolsky, Problem book in Relativity and Gravitation. (more than 400 problems with solutions)