Department of Physics

18203 General Theory of Relativity 

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

Course Content

• Curvature in spacetime, metric, and geodesics.
• Physical consequences of spacetime curvature: The perihelion precession of Mercury, light bending, and gravitational redshift.
• Christoffel connection. Curvature tensors: Riemann, Ricci, Weyl, and the scalar curvature.
• Einstein-Hilbert action. Einstein field equations in vacuum and with matter. Newtonian limit.
• Normal coordinates. Geodesic deviation equations (Jacobi equation).
• Geometric symmetries of spacetime. Killing vector fields, and their application to the study and solution of the Einstein equations.
• Basic examples of black hole metrics: Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström solutions.
• Weak-field limit and gravitational waves.
• Basic elements of cosmology.
• Energy conditions and their role in General Relativity.