Gravitation and Cosmology

Special relativity. Lagrange formulation of classical fields. Differential geometry. Curved spaces and gravitation. Einstein's field equations. Special geometries (Friedmann, Schwarzschild, Kerr...). Black holes. Gravitational waves. Cosmological models.

Knowledge:

The students should learn the basic principles and formalism of classical field theory in general, and in particular the application of these to problems in gravitation and cosmology. The students should learn the basic concepts and methods of differential geometry as applied to general relativity. The students should learn the main verified predictions of general relativity, and the main properties of the standard model of cosmology.

Skills:

The student should learn to analyze simple models in the field.

General competence:

The candidate should be able to apply abstract mathematical models to concrete physical problems.

Lectures and exercise sessions; Expected workload in the course is 225 hours.

The course has joint lectures with FY8903.