Course description

This is the second term of Ph 236.

Instructor:

Yanbei Chen, 129 Bridge Annex, 4258. Email: yanbei@tapir
Office hours: Thursdays, 6:00 PM in the Theoretical Astrophysics Interaction Room, 124 Bridge Annex (will move to somewhere in Cahill very soon)

Teaching Assistants:

Jing Luan, 165 West Bridge. Email: jingluan@caltech
Office hours:

Reading Materials:

This area of the website is available only to the class, because of copyright issues. When you link to the readings page, you will be prompted for a username and password. If you have problems accessing this page email the TAs.

Click here to access the password protected page.

Week 11 (Propagation of GW and geometric optics)

Week 12 (GR as non-linear field theory on flat space and Post-Newtonian expansion)

Week 13 (Radiation reaction, spin-orbit coupling and GW detection)

Week 14 (Compact binaries in the Universe and Black Hole Perturbation Theory)

Week 15 (Black Hole Perturbation Theory and Mapping of Spacetime)

Week 16 (Cosmological Background and Cosmic Strings)

  • My lecture notes were really badly written this week. Please refer to reading materials.
  • Assignment 16

Week 17 (3+1 Decomposition of GR and Lagrangian Formulation)

Week 18 (Hamiltonian Formulation and Causal Structure of Spacetime)

Week 19 (Causal Structure of Spacetime)