Gravitational & General Relativity

4.0 credits

A thorough introduction to Special and General Relativity with some applications to astrophysics & cosmology. The course focuses on the connection between space-time geometry and physics and how this connection leads to the generalization of Newtonian gravity to Einstein’s gravity. The begins with discussion of geometry and space-time distances, progresses to the study of Special Relativity, which deviates from Newtonian predictions for matter moving at high speeds, and then proceeds to discuss General Relativity which further deviates from Newtonian predictions at strong gravity. This will include discussion of the equivalence principle, some basic differential geometry, exploration of some metrics (the solutions to the Einstein field equation) for simple but non-Euclidean geometries. We will discuss the spherically-symmetric (Schwarzschild) solution and the basic physics of orbits around black holes. Applications to astrophysics and cosmology may include a subset of the following: the connection of black holes & accretion disks; gravitational waves, gravitational lensing; homogeneous & isotropic (Roberts-Walker) metric solution in cosmology.