Ray Optics, Fermat’s Principle, and Applications to General Relativity

Ray Optics, Fermat’s Principle, and Applications to General Relativity

Author: Volker Perlick

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2000-02-18

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 3540668985

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This book is about the mathematical theory of light propagation in media on general-relativistic spacetimes. The first part discusses the transition from Maxwell's equations to ray optics. The second part establishes a general mathematical framework for treating ray optics as a theory in its own right, making extensive use of the Hamiltonian formalism. This part also includes a detailed discussion of variational principles (i.e., various versions of Fermat's principle) for light rays in general-relativistic media. Some applications, e.g. to gravitational lensing, are worked out. The reader is assumed to have some basic knowledge of general relativity and some familiarity with differential geometry. Some of the results are published here for the first time, e.g. a general-relativistic version of Fermat's principle for light rays in a medium that has to satisfy some regularity condition only.


Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting, The: On Recent Developments In Theoretical And Experimental General Relativity, Astrophysics, And Relativistic Field Theories - Proceedings Of The Mg14 Meeting On General Relativity (In 4 Parts)

Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting, The: On Recent Developments In Theoretical And Experimental General Relativity, Astrophysics, And Relativistic Field Theories - Proceedings Of The Mg14 Meeting On General Relativity (In 4 Parts)

Author: Massimo Bianchi

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2017-10-13

Total Pages: 4784

ISBN-13: 9813226617

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The four volumes of the proceedings of MG14 give a broad view of all aspects of gravitational physics and astrophysics, from mathematical issues to recent observations and experiments. The scientific program of the meeting included 35 morning plenary talks over 6 days, 6 evening popular talks and 100 parallel sessions on 84 topics over 4 afternoons.Volume A contains plenary and review talks ranging from the mathematical foundations of classical and quantum gravitational theories including recent developments in string theory, to precision tests of general relativity including progress towards the detection of gravitational waves, and from supernova cosmology to relativistic astrophysics, including topics such as gamma ray bursts, black hole physics both in our galaxy and in active galactic nuclei in other galaxies, and neutron star, pulsar and white dwarf astrophysics.The remaining volumes include parallel sessions which touch on dark matter, neutrinos, X-ray sources, astrophysical black holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs, binary systems, radiative transfer, accretion disks, quasars, gamma ray bursts, supernovas, alternative gravitational theories, perturbations of collapsed objects, analog models, black hole thermodynamics, numerical relativity, gravitational lensing, large scale structure, observational cosmology, early universe models and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, inhomogeneous cosmology, inflation, global structure, singularities, chaos, Einstein-Maxwell systems, wormholes, exact solutions of Einstein's equations, gravitational waves, gravitational wave detectors and data analysis, precision gravitational measurements, quantum gravity and loop quantum gravity, quantum cosmology, strings and branes, self-gravitating systems, gamma ray astronomy, cosmic rays and the history of general relativity.


Galileo Unbound

Galileo Unbound

Author: David D. Nolte

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-12

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0192528505

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Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.


Introduction to Gravitational Lensing

Introduction to Gravitational Lensing

Author: Massimo Meneghetti

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-12-10

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 3030735826

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This book introduces the phenomenology of gravitational lensing in an accessible manner and provides a thorough discussion of the related astrophysical applications. It is intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students who want to start working in this rapidly evolving field. This includes also senior researchers who are interested in ongoing or future surveys and missions such as DES, Euclid, WFIRST, LSST. The reader is guided through many fascinating topics related to gravitational lensing like the structure of our galaxy, the searching for exoplanets, the investigation of dark matter in galaxies and galaxy clusters, and several aspects of cosmology, including dark energy and the cosmic microwave background. The author, who has gained valuable experience as academic teacher, guides the readers towards the comprehension of the theory of gravitational lensing and related observational techniques by using simple codes written in python. This approach, beyond facilitating the understanding of gravitational lensing, is preparatory for learning the python programming language which is gaining large popularity both in academia and in the private sector.


Optics, Light and Lasers

Optics, Light and Lasers

Author: Dieter Meschede

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 563

ISBN-13: 3527413316

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Dieses Buch ist genau richtig für Einsteiger in das Fachgebiet. Schwierige Effekte werden direkt und leicht verständlich präsentiert. Diese aktualisierte, erweiterte Auflage bietet neue Kapitel zu neuen Themen wie Plasmonik, Frequenzkämme auf Femto-Ebene und Quantenkaskadenlaser


General Relativity

General Relativity

Author: Robert M. Wald

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 0226870375

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"Wald's book is clearly the first textbook on general relativity with a totally modern point of view; and it succeeds very well where others are only partially successful. The book includes full discussions of many problems of current interest which are not treated in any extant book, and all these matters are considered with perception and understanding."—S. Chandrasekhar "A tour de force: lucid, straightforward, mathematically rigorous, exacting in the analysis of the theory in its physical aspect."—L. P. Hughston, Times Higher Education Supplement "Truly excellent. . . . A sophisticated text of manageable size that will probably be read by every student of relativity, astrophysics, and field theory for years to come."—James W. York, Physics Today


Optical Effects in Solids

Optical Effects in Solids

Author: David B. Tanner

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-05-02

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1107160146

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An overview of the optical effects in solids, this book addresses the physics of materials and their response to electromagnatic radiation--back cover.


Geometric Mechanics and Symmetry

Geometric Mechanics and Symmetry

Author: Darryl D. Holm

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009-07-30

Total Pages: 537

ISBN-13: 0199212902

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A graduate level text based partly on lectures in geometry, mechanics, and symmetry given at Imperial College London, this book links traditional classical mechanics texts and advanced modern mathematical treatments of the subject.