Mathematics 460, Section 500, Fall, 2013
Tensors and General Relativity
Last updated Sat 19 Jul '14
Announcements (reverse chronological order)
Course handout
._._.
Please see
my home page for up-to-date office hours.
Corrections to the textbook
Lecture notes (Updated through p. 12 on 30 Aug.)
Temporary home of the extra notes on the twin "paradox"
Chapter on covariant derivatives and non-Abelian gauge
theories with bibliography from Aspects of Quantum Field Theory
in Curved Space-Time, S. A, Fulling, Cambridge U. P., 1989.
Electromagnetism paper ._._.
Here's the TeX file,
in case you want to import some of the questions into your own document.
It is in Plain TeX and uses
the vanilla macros.
(LaTeX users will need to make some changes.)
A particularly
impressive format for submitting your paper :-)
Homework exercises (These are not to be turned in except as
announced. Uncollected problems, or questions inspired by them, may show
up later on exams.)
- Chapter 1: 3, 5, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19 (Turn in 18 and 19 on Sept. 4.)
Also: Answer the 3 questions on pp. 5-6 of the notes (2 "canards" and one
"topic for class discussion"). If you want to use concrete numbers in the Lorentz
contraction-dilation discussion, I suggest taking speed 3/5. Turn in these essays on
Sept. 6.
("Essay" does not mean a major, multipage production, but it should be a paragraph
in intelligible English.)
- Chapter 2: 12, 13, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24, 30 (Turn in 19 and 24 on Sept.
13. It may help to do 21 before 19.)
- Chapter 3: 4, 6, 9, 13, 16, 21 (No written homework.)
- Chapter 4: None (We will not "cover" this chapter, but you will want
to read it at least superficially to assure continuity with the later
chapters.)
- Chapter 5: 2, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 20, 22 (No written homework.)
- Chapter 6: 7, 9, 13, 18, 23, 25, 32, 33
Also: Calculate the Christoffel symbols for the Robertson-Walker
metric (12.13). (Work in pairs! One of you should use the geodesic
Lagrangian method (see notes, pp. 41-42), and the other should check the
results with eq. (5.75). (Trade jobs halfway through.) Turn in one
paper (on Christoffel symbols) per pair on Oct. 18.) You will need the results
as input into a later
assignment. Note that Omega is not a coordinate,
but a shorthand for the two angular coordinates collectively.
- Now find the Christoffel symbols for the static, spherically
symmetric metric
(see Exercise 6.35 of Schutz or p. 77 of notes;
note that Omega is not a coordinate,
but a shorthand for the two angular coordinates collectively).
Work in pairs. Due Oct. 28.
- Chapter 7: 2, 7 [omit (iii)] , 10 (See next line for instructions.
Hint on
10(b): There are 4 types of symmetries: space translations, time
translation, rotations, Lorentz boosts.)
- Chapter 8: 4, 5, 9, 18 (From Chapters 7 and 8, turn in only
Exercises 7.7, 7.10, and 8.18. These are tough, so 2/3 of the points will
be "extra credit" -- that is, the actual maximum point value of all homework will
be 120, not 100. I'll accept papers
any time before the end of classes (Monday, Dec. 2).)
- Chapter 12: 1, 4, 8, 20, 21
Also: For the Robertson-Walker metric, calculate the Riemann tensor
(20 independent components), Ricci tensor, Ricci curvature scalar, and
Einstein tensor.
Check that the last obeys the conservation law (contracted Bianchi
identity). (Work in pairs and turn in one paper per pair on Nov. 15.)
- Now we need all the same stuff for the static, spherically symmetric metric
(Work in pairs; due Nov. 22.)
Test solutions
Track your grades on eCampus.
Supplementary material
Old course home pages: Fall 2011 ._.
Fall 2009 ._.
Spring 2008 ._.
Fall 2005
Go to home pages:
Fulling ._._.
Calclab ._._.
Math Dept ._._.
University
e-mail: fulling@math.tamu.edu