PHYS 5770 Spring 2010 Syllabus

PHYS 5770 Spring 2010 Homepage

PHYS 5770 Gravitational Theory (General Relativity) Spring 2010: Syllabus

Content

The two most important applications of General Relativity are, first, black holes, and second, the cosmic microwave background. The basis of the latter is general relativistic perturbation theory in a uniform expanding background. The intention in this course is to give you a thorough understanding of black holes, and to get you to the point where you can begin to understand the cosmic background.

Unfortunately, general relativity is challenging mathematically, which poses barriers to understanding the interesting applications. We will cover the mathematics that is required, but with a clear view that the purpose of the mathematics is to allow you to understand the applications.

I will hand out notes in advance for each section of the course, and I will lecture from those notes.

This is the planned path for the course:

Special Relativity
Coordinate approach to General Relativity
- Ideal black holes (Schwarzschild, Reissner-Nordström, Kerr-Newman)
- Homogeneous, isotropic cosmology (FRW metric)
Tetrad approach to General Relativity
- Black hole interiors
- General relativistic perturbation theory
- Cosmic microwave background

Grading

Grading will be weighted as follows:

Problem Sets	60%
Midterm	20%
Final	20%

Policies

Class and University Policies

General relativistic volume rendering of a magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a disk and jet around a black hole Spring 2010 PHYS 5770 Homepage

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Updated 2010 Jan 12