General Information

A continuation of PHYS 6553 and ASTRO 6509 that covers a variety of advanced topics and applications of general relativity in astrophysics, cosmology, and high-energy physics.

Prerequisites

PHYS 6553 or permission of instructor.

Topics Covered

  • Black hole thermodynamics
  • Other advanced topics in black hole physics such as rotation, perturbations, merger and ringdown, superradiance, singularity theorems, and properties of the horizon.
  • de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spacetimes
  • The mathematics of hypersurfaces and geodesic congruences
  • Energy and the Hamiltonian in GR

Workload

  • 10 Problem sets ~5-15hours/week, and a final presentation. [Spring 2023]

General Advice

Easier than the first general relativity course. [Spring 2023]

Testimonials

Very fun; we covered Hawking radiation at the end, but the topics vary year to year. [Spring 2023]

Past Offerings

Semester Professor Median Grade Syllabus
Spring 2023 Tom Hartman N/A PHYS6554_SP23.pdf