Department of Physics

10ΕΚ111 General Theory of Relativity (postgraduate)

Course webpage:   https://eclass.uoa.gr/courses/PHYS262

Course outline

Course content

• Curvature in space-time, metric, and geodesics.
• Physical effects of the curvature of space-time: Perihelion of Mercury, bending of light, gravitational redshift.
• Christoffel symbols, Riemann, Ricci, Weyl and scalar curvature tensors.
• Einstein-Hilbert action, Einstein equations, Newtonian limit.
• Normal coordinates, geodesic deviation equations (Jacobi).
• Basic examples of metric black holes: Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordstrom.
• Symmetries of transformation of geometric objects, Killing vector fields.
• Basic theory related to cosmology and gravitational waves.