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Introduction to General Relativity

A Course for Undergraduate Students of Physics

  • Textbook
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Cosimo Bambi

    1. Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

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  • Offers an introduction for students of theoretical physics
  • Presents the calculations step by step, as in class
  • Covers recent advances in gravitational wave astronomy
  • Includes numerous examples and problems
  • Examines historical developments, which show how physics has advanced over time, both experimentally and theoretically

Part of the book series: Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics (ULNP)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
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  2. Introduction

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 1-27

  3. Special Relativity

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 29-45

  4. Relativistic Mechanics

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 47-66

  5. Electromagnetism

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 67-84

  6. Riemannian Geometry

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 85-105

  7. General Relativity

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 107-122

  8. Einstein’s Gravity

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 123-139

  9. Schwarzschild Spacetime

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 141-161

  10. Classical Tests of General Relativity

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 163-178

  11. Black Holes

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 179-204

  12. Cosmological Models

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 205-221

  13. Gravitational Waves

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 223-255

  14. Beyond Einstein’s Gravity

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages 257-265

  15. Correction to: Introduction to General Relativity

    • Cosimo Bambi
    Pages C1-C1

  16. Back Matter

    Pages 267-335
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Keywords

About this book

Following the approach of Lev Landau and Evgenii Lifshitz, this book introduces the theory of special and general relativity with the Lagrangian formalism and the principle of least action. This method allows the complete theory to be constructed starting from a small number of assumptions, and is the most natural approach in modern theoretical physics. The book begins by reviewing Newtonian mechanics and Newtonian gravity with the Lagrangian formalism and the principle of least action, and then moves to special and general relativity. Most calculations are presented step by step, as is done on the board in class. The book covers recent advances in gravitational wave astronomy and provides a general overview of current lines of research in gravity. It also includes numerous examples and problems in each chapter.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Cosimo Bambi

About the author

Cosimo Bambi is Xie Xide Junior Chair Professor at the Department of Physics at Fudan University (Shanghai, China) and a Humboldt Fellow at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Tübingen, Germany). He received his PhD from Ferrara University (Italy) in 2007, and was a postdoc at Wayne State University (Michigan), IPMU at The University of Tokyo (Japan), and at LMU Munich (Germany). He moved to Fudan University at the end of 2012 under the Thousand Young Talents Program. In 2016, he was awarded with a JSPS fellowship to visit Japan. In 2018, he received the Xu Guangqi Award (for the best Italian researcher in China). He regularly serves as referee for journals like PRL, ApJ, JHEP, JCAP, etc. and as proposal reviewer for the Chang Jiang Scholars Program (China), Czech Science Foundation (Czech Republic), German Research Foundation (Germany), and National Research Foundation (South Africa). His research interests cover several areas in gravity, cosmology, and high-energy astrophysics. He has published more than 100 papers on refereed journals as first or corresponding author, has over 3,000 citations, and his h-index is 34. He has authored two books, and edited one volume (in ASSL) with Springer.

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