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Jürgen Ehlers Spring School "Gravitational Physics" 2012

organized by the University of Potsdam and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)

19th - 30th March 2012

The University of Potsdam and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) offer a crash course on the physical and mathematical foundations of gravity. This course can be attended by students studying in their 5th semester Physics or Mathematics. The seminar consists of two separate lecture series (to be held in English):

  1. Introduction to General Relativity (Jeremie Joudioux, Martin Reiris)
  2. Early Universe Cosmology (Jean-Luc Lehners)

 

The timetable is arranged to provide two lectures in the morning, each one lasting 90 minutes. In the afternoon there will be opportunities for questions and discussions.

The lectures will take place daily from 9.00-10.30 and 11.00-12.30 in the lecture hall of the main building of the Max Planck campus in Golm (near Potsdam).

Participants studying outside the area Potsdam-Berlin will be supported financially with 200 Euros. The `Fachschaft Physik' of the Universiy of Potsdam will provide assistance in finding accomodation. Information on how to get to the Max Planck campus in Golm can be found here.

Contact Person

Dr. Lars Andersson
Max Planck Insitute of Gravitational Physics
Am Mühlenberg 1
14467 Potsdam-Golm
e-mail: laan@aei.mpg.de

Registration

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Abstracts

Introduction to General Relativity (Jeremie Joudioux, Martin Reiris)

We start the introduction of the physical fundaments of General Relativity by reviewing the concepts of time, space, mass and force in Newtonian physics as well as in Special Relativity. We then present the basic assumptions of General Relativity, i.e. the Lorentzian spacetime structures and Einstein's field equations, and depict empirical testings. Further topics include Gravitational Radiation, the initial value problem, spherically symmetric spacetimes, neutron star models, gravitational collapse, black holes.

Early Universe Cosmology (Jean-Luc Lehners)

This course will provide an introduction into early universe cosmology. The course will briefly review the standard Big Bang model​ and examine its shortcomings, and then proceed with a detailed exposition of the most popular theory of the early universe, namely inflation. We will see to what extent inflation addresses the shortcomings of the Big Bang model, examine its dynamics and analyze how it generates classical perturbations from quantum fluctuations, thus producing seeds for the formation of all cosmic structures. We will discuss how the theory can be tested, as well as the open issues that inflationary cosmology must still overcome. Since some of these open issues are rather serious, we will examine an alternative theory of the early universe, namely that of the cyclic universe, and contrast it with inflation. At the end of the course, we will give a brief introduction into how the questions of early universe cosmology may be addressed within string theory.

Requirements

Basic knowledge of differential geometry, Newtonian mechanics and gravity, special relativity. The notes skriptdiffgeo.pdf (on differential geometry) and skriptmechgrav.pdf (on mechanics and gravitation) will give some of the appropriate background material.

References

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