Notes on Gravitational Physics

[2308.09826] Notes on Gravitational Physics Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology arXiv:2308.09826 (gr-qc) [Submitted on 18 Aug 2023 ( v1 ), last revised 14 Aug 2026 (this version, v4)] Title: Notes on Gravitational Physics Authors: John L. Friedman View a PDF of the paper titled Notes on Gravitational Physics, by John L. Friedman View PDF Abstract: These notes are self-contained, with the first 7 chapters used in a one-semester course with recommended texts by Wald, by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, and by Schutz. In its treatment of topics covered in these standard texts, the presentation here typically includes steps skipped in Wald or MTW. Treatments of gravitational waves, particle orbits in black-hole backgrounds, the Teukolsky equation, and the initial value equations are motivated in part by the discoveries of gravitational waves from the inspiral and coalescence of binary black holes and neutron stars, advances in numerical relativity, and the expected LISA space-based observatory. The notes begin with a detailed presentation of special relativity with a geometrical orientation, starting with with time dilation and length contraction and including relativistic particles, fluids, electromagnetism, and curvilinear coordinates. Chaps. 2-5 cover curvature, the Einstein equation, relativistic stars, and black holes. Chap. 6, on gravitational waves, includes a discussion of detection and noise. Chap. 7 is a brief introduction to cosmology, deriving the metrics of homogeneous isotropic space, the equations governing a universe with matter, radiation and vacuum energy, and their solutions, and discussions of the cosmological redshift and on using gravitational waves to measure the Hubble constant. Chap. 8, on the initial value problem, has a section on the form of the equations used in numerical relativity. The Newman-Penrose formalism and the Teukolsky equation are covered in Chap. 9. Following that is a chapter on black-hole thermodynamics and a final chapter on the gravitational action and on conserved quantities for asymptotically flat spacetimes, using Noether's theorem. An appendix covers forms, densities, integration, and Cartan calculus. Comments: 392 pages. This updated version has minor corrections, replaces or deletes broken links, and includes some additional material on electromagnetism in flat and curved spacetime Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) ; High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) MSC classes: 83-01, 85-01 Cite as: arXiv:2308.09826 [gr-qc] (or arXiv:2308.09826v4 [gr-qc] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2308.09826 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: John Friedman [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 18 Aug 2023 21:31:53 UTC (9,245 KB) [v2] Tue, 21 May 2024 15:56:45 UTC (7,822 KB) [v3] Wed, 25 Mar 2026 19:17:45 UTC (7,941 KB) [v4] Fri, 14 Aug 2026 19:59:56 UTC (7,936 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Notes on Gravitational Physics, by John L. Friedman View PDF TeX Source view license Current browse context: gr-qc < prev | next > new | recent | 2023-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph astro-ph.HE References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

Related documents

• Review of General Relativity: The Theoretical Minimum#653166
• Physics Notes.#333246
• Physics Notes.#333110
• Scrutiny of Einstein's Geodesic and Field Equations#739172
• Scalaron-modified null focusing and radial monotonicity in static f(R) gravity#1141623