This book discusses some of the open questions addressed by researchers in general relativity. Photons and particles play important roles in the theoretical framework, since they are involved in analyzing and measuring gravitational fields and in constructing mathematical models of gravitational fields of various types. The authors highlight this aspect covering topics such as the construction of models of Bateman electromagnetic waves and analogous gravitational waves, the studies of gravitational radiation in presence of a cosmological constant and the gravitational compass or clock compass for providing an operational way of measuring a gravitational field. The book is meant for advanced students and young researchers in general relativity, who look for an updated text which covers in depth the calculations and, equally, takes on new challenges. The reader, along the learning path, is stimulated by provocative examples interspersed in the text that help to find novel representations of the uses of particles and photons.

Autorentext

Peter Hogan is Emeritus Professor at University College Dublin. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees from The National University of Ireland and is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Theoretical Physics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, the Centre for Relativity, University of Texas at Austin and the School of Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin. His publications of more than 90 papers and three monographs are in Electrodynamics, Yang-Mills gauge theory from the fibre bundle point of view and general relativity (equations of motion, gravitational waves, exact solutions of Einstein's equations and cosmology). He has published research carried out in Japan, South Africa, France, Poland and the U.S.

Dirk Puetzfeld is a researcher at Bremen University (Germany). He received his Dipl. Phys. and Dr. rer. nat. degrees from University of Cologne (Germany), both in theoretical physics. He was an assistant professor at Tohoku University (Japan), and a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics (Germany), University of Oslo (Norway), Iowa State University (USA). His main research interests include gravitational physics, cosmology, relativistic geodesy, as well as computational methods. His publication record encompasses over 50 scientific papers in international journals as well as two books.

Inhalt

Preface.- Congruences of World Lines.- Bivector Formalism.- Hypothetical Objects.- Bateman Waves.- Gravitational (clock) compass.- de Sitter Cosmology.- Small Magnetic Black Hole.- Reissner-Nordström Particle.