FY3452: Gravitation and CosmologyV 2024The 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: D5-126Lectures: Monday 12.15-14.00, 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: Basic differential geometry. Week 4: Basic differential geometry. Week 5: Schwarzschild solution and tests, no Thursday lecture Week 6: Schwarzschild solution, tests, black hole Week 7: Kerr black holes Week 8: Classical field theory Week 9: Classical field theory, curvature. Week 10: Curvature, Einstein equations Week 11: Home exam Week 12: Linearized gravity, Week 13: Easter Week 14: only Thursday lecture: gravitational waves Week 15: Monday: Guest lecture numcerical GR hydrodynamics, slides; Cosmology Week 16: Cosmology, FRW models Week 17: FRW models, Structure formation, inflation 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 April, 2024. 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.Corrections:Language corrections are welcome, but not listed below
ExercisesWeek 3: exercises 1 and solutions.Week 4: exercises 2 and solutions. Week 5: exercises 3 and solutions; some more exercises 3b and solutions. Week 7: exercises 4 and solutions. Week 8: exercises 5 and solutions. Week 9: exercises 6 and solutions. Week 10: exercises 7 Week 12: exercises 8 and solutions. Week 15: exercises 9 and solutions. Week 16: exercises 10 SoftwareYou can find a python program for the calculation of Christoffel symbols, Riemann tensor, etc. here. Hartle provides several Mathematica notebooks.Home examThe one-week home exam in the middle of the semester will count 33% of the final mark. The exercises will be available Thursday, 07.03. after the lectures. Or you can download the home exam here after 12.15. Solutions should be handed in Monday 18.03., latest 12.00, in my mailbox (D5-166), the lectures or by email. For (concise) solutions see For solutions see here.You can find the home exam from 2023 here. ExamThe final exam of this course (counting 67%) takes placeMarks and solutionReference groupconsists of |