Gravitational physics has now become a mainstream topic in physics and physics teaching. In particular cosmology and gravitational wave physics are at the focus of a great deal of current research. Thus it is important to introduce students to General Relativity as soon as reasonable. This textbook offers a brief but comprehensive treatment accessible to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and any physicist or mathematician interested in understanding the material in a short time. The author, an experienced teacher of the subject, has included numerous examples and exercises to help students consolidate the ideas they have learned. Solutions to the exercises are provided as supplementary material in the online chapters.

Accessible introduction for undergraduates and graduates alike Concise treatment but without sacrificing rigor Replete with worked examples, carefully designed exercises and online solutions

Autorentext

Ronald Adler has worked mainly in theoretical particle physics and general relativity. His experience also includes work in experimental particle physics, experimental general relativity, experiments in high temperature superconductivity, satellite and orbital launch systems, and digital image analysis. He is the co-author of a classic textbook on general relativity and has devoted over half a century to teaching physics students at a number of universities. He is also the author of many research publications, and is currently working on fundamental physics problems including the nature of dark matter and dark energy, properties of black holes and gravitational waves, the birth of the universe, and physics at the Planck scale. In his free time he enjoys mountaineering and hiking.

Inhalt

Preface.- Part I: Special Relativity in Review.- Chapter 1. A brief stroll in special relativity.- Chapter 2. Lorentz transformations.- Chapter 3. The motion of particles.- Part II: Vectors and Tensors.- Chapter 4. Riemann spaces and tensors.- Chapter 5. Affine connections and geodesics.- Chapter 6. Tensor analysis.- Part III: General Relativity.- Chapter 7. Classical gravity and geometry.- Chapter 8. Curved space and gravity.- Chapter 9. Spherically symmetric gravitational fields.- Chapter 10. Black holes and gravitational collapse.- Chapter 11. Linearized general relativity and gravitational waves.- Part IV: Cosmology.- Chapter 12. The Einstein field equations for cosmology.- Chapter 13. The cosmological metric.- Chapter 14. The dynamical equations of cosmology.- Chapter 15. Solutions for the present universe.- Chapter 16. Some properties of the LCDM Universe.- Chapter 17. Earlier times and radiation.- Chapter 18. A brief historical overview of the universe.- Chapter 19. Inflation and basic questions.