"General Relativity" is a complete revision and extension of Straumann's well-known classic textbook "General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics." It is intended for physics and mathematics students eager to become acquainted with the foundations of general relativity and its major applications in astrophysics and cosmology. The foundations are thoroughly developed together with the required mathematical background from differential geometry developed in Part III. The author also discusses the tests of general relativity in detail, plus he includes the latest findings on supermassive black holes and the first double-pulsar system. Much space is devoted to the study of compact objects, especially to neutron stars and to the basic laws of black-hole physics. This well-structured text and reference enables readers to easily navigate through the various sections as best matches their backgrounds and perspectives, whether mathematical, physical or astronomical.

This book provides all the necessary mathematics and also the foundations of Einstein's theory; this makes it quite different from other monographs on Relativistic Astrophysics Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Norbert Straumann ist emeritierter Professor für Physik an der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Zürich. Seit 1969 war Straumann ordentlicher Professor an der Universität Zürich. Von 1980-1987 war er Mitglied des Wissenschaftsrates beim Schweizerischen Nationalfonds. Von 1997-2000 wirkte er als Fachbeirat des Albert-Einstein-Instituts in Potsdam.

Inhalt
1 Physics in External Gravitational Fields.- 2 Einstein's Field Equations.- 3 The Schwarzschild Solution and Classical Tests of General Relativity.- 4 Weak Gravitational Fields.- 5 The Post-Newtonian Approximation.- 6 White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars.- 7 Black Holes.- 8 The Positive Mass Theorem.- 9 Differentiable Manifolds.- 10 Tangent Vectors, Vector and Tensor Fields.- 11 The Lie Derivative.- 12 Differential Forms.- 13 Affine Connections.- 14 Some Details.- A Fundamental Equations for Hypersurfaces.- B Ricci Curvature of Warped Products.- C Frobenius Integrability Theorem.- D Collection of Important Formulas.- References.