FY3452: Gravitation and CosmologyV 2025The course gives an introduction to classical field theory and general relativity including applications, in particular black holes, gravitational waves and cosmology. Lecturer, time and place:Michael Kachelrieß, email; office: D5-123Lectures: Monday 08.15-10.00, C4-118 Lectures + Exercises: Thursday 10.15-12.00, C4-118. Plan of the lectures (preliminary):Week 2: Special relativity, Lagrangian mechanics and symmetries.Week 3: Lagrangian mechanics and symmetries, basic differential geometry. Week 4: Basic differential geometry, Killing vector fields. Week 5: Schwarzschild solution and tests Week 6: Schwarzschild black hole Week 7: Kerr black holes Week 8: Classical field theory Week 9: Classical field theory, curvature. Week 10: Einstein equations, GR hydrodynamics Week 11: Relativistic stars, Linearized gravity Week 12: Linearized gravity, Gravitational waves Week 13: Gravitational waves, cosmology Week 14: Home exam Week 15: FRW models Week 16: Easter Week 17: no lecture PensumThe pensum is defined by the content of the lectures. We will follow roughly my lecture notes (which will be updated during the course), see the link below. The number of excellent text-books on gravity is large: You should check out the library to find the optimal book(s) for you, depending on the degree of mathematical rigor you prefer and the focus of the various authors on different types of applications. Some recommend ones are
Lectures notesYou can download the script here, last update from Jan. 2025. If you find more errors, let me know. You can obtain a maximal bonus of 5% for finding errors in the lecture notes: 5% for the student finding most errors, 4% for second most, etc. Email errors to me.Distribution of bonus points:
Material that can be omitted for the exam:Corrections:Language corrections are welcome, but not listed below
g^(kappa lambda) inside the red square. Page 41, right above eqn 3.56. ExercisesWeek 3: exercises 1 and solutions.Week 4: exercises 2 and solutions. Week 5: exercises 3 and solutions. Week 6: exercises 4 and solutions. Week 7: exercises 5 and solutions. Week 9: exercises 6 and solutions. Week 10: exercises 7 and solutions. Week 11: exercises 8 SoftwareYou can find a python program for the calculation of Christoffel symbols, Riemann tensor, etc. here. Hartle provides several Mathematica notebooks.Home examThe home exam in week 14 will count 33% of the final mark. The exam will be available Thursday, 27.03. after the lectures. Or you can download the home exam here after 12.15. Solutions should be handed in Monday 07.04., latest 10.00, via Inspera. You can find the home exam from 2020 and 2023 here and here.ExamThe final exam of this course (counting 67%) takes placeMarks and solution |