PROJECT REPORT

For

READING PROJECT ON
GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY AND COSMOLOGY

By
Argha Banerjee
Dhruba Dutta Chowdhury
Submitted to
PROFESSOR ANIRBAN KUNDU
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA

INTRODUCTION

Newton's law of gravitation had been accepted for more than two hundred years as a
valid description of the gravitational force between masses. In Newton's model,
gravity is the result of a instanteneous action a distance attractive force between
massive objects.
In 1905 Albert Einstein introduced his theory of special relativity.Special relativity
makes two postulates:
The laws of physics are the same for all inertial observers.
There exists a maximum velocity for propagation of interactions.
From the first postulate it follows that this velocity is same for all inertial frames and
can be shown equal to the speed of light.
In light of special relativity the instanteneous force of gravity in newton's theory is no
longer tenable.
Also special relativity is applicable only for inertial observers ie, in gravity free
regions.
To resolve such difficulties Einstein proposed the GENERAL THEORY OF
RELATIVITY which is a relativistic theory of gravity.According to general relativity
gravity is no longer a force but the geometry of spacetime.A massive body changes
the spacetime geometry in its neighbourhood from the flat Minskowski geometry and
a free particle follows the geodesics of the changed geometry.
Our aim in this reading project was to study and understand general theory of
relativity and its application to cosmology.
In the following pages we present a short project report for the same.
Our sincere thanks to Professor Anirban Kundu,Department of Physics,Calcutta
University for accepting us as project students and guiding us through the endeavour.

KEY CONCEPTS AND IDEAS EXPLORED IN THE PROJECT

The Equivalence principle, flat spacetime and curved spacetime,Affine connection
from principle of equivalence,Christoffel symbols and locally inertial coordinates,
gravitational time dilation amd weak gravity limit, Riemann Christoffel curvature
tensor as a test for differentiating between curved and flat spacetime
Einstein's quation, Ricci tensor and Einstein tensor, Different metrics like FRW and
Schwarschild, singuarities in Schwarschild metric, removable singularity, black hole
and stability of galactic objects(outward radiation pressure balancing gravitational
force, or Fermi pressure, or neutron formation)
Newtonian cosmology, difference between Newtonian cosmology and modern
cosmmology(passive and active viewpoints), derivation of Friedmann equations
Modern cosmology- microscopic and macroscopic constituents and their properties,
need for dark matter and dark energy, matter dominance and radiation
dominance,combination of both,inflationary expansion,critical density,open,closed
and flat universes,definition of omega for matter and radiation,, candidates for dark
energy, cosmological constant,how cosmological constant results in accelerating
univere which can be seen from fluid equation and Friedmann equations, negative
effective pressure of dark energy
CMBR- what it is, anisotropies, horizon problem,temperature, origin,
matter-radiation decoupling,surface of last scattering.

GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY

The reading project started with an account of the motivations behind developing the
General Theory Of Relativity.The limitations of Newtonian gravity including the
instantaneous propagation of information in Newtonian gravity were discussed.The
limitations of the Special Theory Of Relativity to wit it's dependence on special
frames like Lorentz frames were discussed.With that started an introduction to GTR,
why GTR should be studied and it's applications to the fields of Astrophysics and
Cosmology were mentioned. The approach taken by Weinberg where GTR is
motivated from the Principle of Equivalence is the one which was followed.
The difference between curved space and flat space were then taken up.A number of
properties of flat space like Euclid's fifth postulate which describes parallel lines were
found not to hold true for curved space. Some examples of curved space were given
like the sphere and saddle space and negative and positive curvature defined. The
spherical triangle and the sum of it's angles exceeding 180 degree were also
discussed.The theorem that in any sufficiently small region in curved space we can
construct a locally Euclidean space was discussed. Transformation of these
coordinates resulted in the definition of a metric space.The Minkowski spacetime and
how it can be generalised in curved space by introducing the general symmetric
metric tensor was shown.The relations between the metric tensor of the flat
Minkowski spacetime and the general metric tensor for curved space was also
established.
Some experimental results were then taken up.The Eotvos experiment which
established that the ratio of inertial mass and gravitational mass is the same for all
bodies was then elucidated.Then we learned The Principle Of Equivalence which
states that the Laws of physics remains the same in an infinetisimally small body in
free fall over a short time as it would in any Lorentz frame in empty space. There are
two verions to the Principle Of Equivalence.One is the Weak Principle of
Equivalence which states that only the laws of gravity would remain the same and the
strong Principle of Equivalence which says that all laws of Physics must remain the
same.It is from this principle that we motivate the rest of our study of GTR.Then we
come to some mathematical details.For a body in free fall we set up the equations of
motion in inertial coordinates and then transform to more general coordinates to set
up the geodesic equation while defining the affine connection or Christoffel symbols
in the process.This Christoffel symbols are symmetric in their lower indices and they
can be expressed as functions of the general metric tensor and it's derivatives.The
Christoffel symbols are not necessarily zero for flat space as can be seen by working
out the symbols for plane polar coordinates.

The Christoffel symbols for some important metrics like the Schwarzschild and FRW
metric are then calculated.Both of them are diagonal metrices.The Schwarzschild
metric has a spherical symmetry and is applicable for space-time outside a spherical
mass distribution.The metric has singularities at r=0 and r=2GM where r is the radial
coordinate and M is the mass of the body.The latter is called the Schwarzschild radius
and it is a removable singularity as it can be removed by going to another coordinate
system.However the r=0 singularity is a genuine singularity and cannot be removed.
The FRW metric is a time-dependent metric with a scale factor a(t) which is
important physically because we have to describe an expanding universe.Two points
in this metric have a constant coordinate distance but increasing physical distance as
the grid expands.The 'r' coordinate is dimensionless with a(t) carrying the length
dimension.The k in the denominator can have values of -1,0 or +1 which have
important consequences in comsology from the Friedmann equations describing an
open,flat or a closed universe respectively.
The geodesic equation in the weak gravity limit and the gravitational redshift of
photons were also studied. The gravitational redshift of photons and the bending of
light near the Sun were important experimental triumphs of GTR.
Black Holes were discussed next. More generally the equilibrium between outward
radiation pressure and inward gravitational pressure were discussed including other
sources of pressure in a collapsing star like Fermi pressure.The formation of white
dwarfs and neutron stars were also discussed.More massive stars run out of nuclear
fuel and are in astate of gravitational collapse which results in them hitting the r=0
singularity,what happens after that is unknown because the space-time geometry is so
violently curved that light cannot escape from it and is permanently trapped.Thus
light rays below Rs bend inwards and light rays on Rs move around the star like a
satellite.Rs is called the event horizon and such an object is called a Black
Hole.There are different types of black holes like Schwarzschild black hole,Kerr
black hole or Reissner-Nordstorm black hole. A black hole is completely specified by
only three quantities, it's mass,charge and angular momentum a result known as the
No hair theorem.
Next we come to the Riemann-Christoffel curvature tensor which is nonzero for
curved space and zero for flat space.Thus the value of this tensor can be used to
differentiate between curved and flat space.If we lower the first index of the tensor
we get the Riemann curvature. The Riemann curvature follows some properties
which reduce it's independent components to 20.The Riemann curvature can be
further contracted to give the Ricci tensor which has two indices. The Ricci tensor is
symmetric in it's indices.Further contraction of the Ricci tensor gives the Ricci scalar.
The Ricci tensor and the Ricci scalar can also be combined to form a new tensor
called the Einstein tensor which will be used in the Einstein field equations.
The Einstein field equations are then deduced with the curvature quantity G in one
side and the matter and energy in form of the electromagnetic stress tensor in curved

space in the other side.Then considering a homogeneous and isotropic universe and
using the FRW metric we get the Friedmann equations.
It can be shown that a static universe filled with matter is not possible from the field
equations as we get inconsistent results.
The Einstein equations in vacuum is R=0 and it is seen that the Schwarzschild metric
satisfies this equation.
COSMOLOGY
Some fundamental ideas of cosmology are then discussed like The Cosmological
principle which states that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic in large length
scales.The universe also expands which was experimentally discovered by Edwin
Hubble who discovered that galaxies which are far from us are receding faster than
galaxies near us and that most of the galaxies are red-shifted.The Hubble parameter is
defined in terms of the scale factor a(t) of FRW geometry and it's derivative.It has a
fixed value at this particular time known as the Hubble's constant.
We then study the main constituents,both microscopic and macroscopic,that make up
our universe.The universe is made of the following microscopic constituents- Matter
which is mainly made up of baryons. Matter has pressure p=0 and it is
non-relativistic.The primary constituent of baryonic matter is are protons as free
neutrons are unstable.80% of baryonic matter is invisible in the form of interstellar
gas.The next component is electromagnetic radiation which are the photons.They
follow boson distribution law and have two polarisation states.Next comes the
neutrinos which are of three types and have extremely low masses and are relativistic
particles.Heavy neutrinos have been predicted as dark matter particles but they would
be non-relativistic. Next is dark matter whose existence has been predicted from
galaxy rotation curves.In a spiral galaxy most of the mass is concentrated in the
centre of the galaxy and the matter in the arms of the galaxy rotate around this
galactic core. The velocity is found easily and it comes out inversley proportional to
the radial distance r as the Mass remains almosst the same as we go out radially. Thus
the velocity of the matter on the spiral arms should decrease as the radial distance
increases.However it is found that the velocity of matter on the spiral arms remain
constant as the radius increases.Thus there must be more matter than can be seen in
the galaxy like a halo around the galaxy and this is called the dark matter.It is
considered that most of it is cold dark matter and non-relativistic.Dark matter
comprise 27% of our universe.

Next is Dark energy.It was found experimentally in 1998 that the more distant parts
of our universe are receding from us with a greater than expected velocity and
something is causing this acceleration.The mechanism causing this accleration is
called dark energy.
The macroscopic constituents of our universe include stars,galaxies and galaxy
clusters,superclusters and voids.The formation of these superclusters and voids are
not yet understood.
Considering a fluid in a spherical volume we get the fluid equation with the help of
thermodynamics.Together with the Friedmann equations this gives rise to the
acceleration equation.It can be seen that the universe will decelerate if (pho+3p)>0
where pho is the density and p the pressure of the constituents of the universe.
Then writing the Friedman equations with the help of the Hubble parameter we get
the requirements for open,flat and closed systems with k<0,k=0,k>0.The deceleration
parameter and the redshift are also similarly found out.The redshift gives us an idea
of the age of the universe when the light was emitted by the distant galaxy and the
deceleration parameter is a measurable quantity whose measurement led to the idea
of dark energy(due to an accelerating universe).
From the fluid equation we can get,by putting the appropiate values of the pressure in
terms of the density,the dependence of density on the scale factor a(t) considering
matter or radiation dominance.It is seen that for matter the density falls off as
a(t)^(-3) which is quite intuitive as the space expands and so the density must fall
off.Considering a flat universe and a power law form for a(t) proportional to t^(q)
where t is the time we get the form of the Hubble parameter H(t) in terms of t. A
similar thing is done for radiation dominance where the density comes out to be
proportional to a(t)^(-)4 where the extra multiplicative a(t) factor is due to increase in
wavelength and decrease in energy as the universe expands.A similar form for H(t) is
again found considering a power law form. It is seen that H(t) never equals zero but
gets smaller and smaller. Thus the expansion slows down but it cannot recollapse due
to gravity.H(t) falls off faster for radiation dominance than for matter dominance and
thus radiation dominance is a very unstable state as the presence of even a very small
amount of matter will result in the universe being dominated by matter eventually.
We can consider other solutions for different relations of pressure and density and we
get that density is constant for one such solution. Considering flat universe this
results in an exponential increase in a(t) which is believed to have happened at the
start of the big bang.However if the universe has a curvature term then it will
dominate the evolution of the universe as the curvature term falls of as a(t)^(-2)
whereas the other terms fall off as a(t)^(-3) and a(t)^(-4).That we are still in such a
flat universe suggests that the curvature term must have been small to begin with
even though there is no symmetry to keep it so close to zero. This is called the
flatness problem and is one of the motivations behind the idea of inflation.
Experimentally if we consider a flat universe with a nonzero cosmological constant

we can explain the accelerating expansion of the universe.The cosmological constant

contribution negates the negative contribution of the pressure and density
terms.Defining a density for the cosmological constant we can again get the required
conditions for open,closed and flat universes.Also it can be seen that the
cosmological constant has a negative effective pressure,work is done on the
cosmological constant as the universe expands.The origin of the cosmological
constant can be because of the zero point energy of the quantum fields.However it
turns out that the contribution due to the field is 60 times larger than the experimental
value of the cosmological constant.So there must be another effect which is
cancelling this huge contribution from the fields.However such an effect has yet to be
found by physicists.
The universe also contains an all pervading omnipresent background radaiation called
the Cosmic Microwave Background which is a major evidence for the Big Bang
Theory.The CMB is isotropic and smooth which is thus an evidence for the
Cosmological principle.However it has small anisotropies in the 10*-5 range which is
relevant for structure formation in our universe.It was discovered by Penzias and
Wilson in 1965. From the energy density of the present CMB we get the density
parameter for radiation and from the average energy of a CMB photon at the
temperature now we can get the number density of photons.We also get the
temperature T proportional to 1/a by comparing the relations for energy densities of
radiation.From the density parameter for baryons we can get the number density for
baryons too which comes out to be much lower than that of photons
The origin of the CMB radiation can be understood as follows.The primordial soup
contained protons,electrons, energetic photons and some neutrons and neutrinos.The
elctrons and protons could not form a hydrogen atom as,even though they were of the
same number,the photons were so energetic that as soon as the hydrogen atom was
formed it was broken down by the photons.Once the electron was free it could
interact with the photons by Thompson scattering.The universe was in an opaque
phase.The mean free path of the photons were very small.As the universe expanded
and cooled the temperature came down and the energy of the photons became less
than 13.6 ev which was the minimum energy required to ionise the hydrogen
atom.Thus hydrogen atoms could be formed and the mean free path of the photons
increased and became larger than the size of the universe.This is known as
decoupling and the universe became transparebt to light.At the time of decoupling the
distribution was that of a black body and thus it remains still now.The photons of
CMB reach us uniformly from all parts of the sky and come as if originating from the
surface of a sphere with the radius equal to distance from the surface of the sphere
that the photons have travelled.This is known as surface of last scattering. The
surface of last scattering is different for different parts of the universe.

CONCLUSION
General relativity is very successful in providing a framework for accurate models
which describe an impressive array of physical phenomena. On the other hand, there
are many interesting open questions, and in particular, the theory as a whole is almost
certainly incomplete.
In contrast to all other modern theories of fundamental interactions, general relativity
is a classical theory: it does not include the effects of quantum physics. The quest for
a quantum version of general relativity addresses one of the most fundament open
questions in physics.
It has long been hoped that a theory of quantum gravity would also eliminate another
problematic feature of general relativity: the presence of spacetime singularities.
These singularities are boundaries ("sharp edges") of spacetime at which geometry
becomes ill-defined, with the consequence that general relativity itself loses its
predictive power.
Other attempts to modify general relativity have been made in the context of
cosmology. In the modern cosmological models, most energy in the universe is in
forms that have never been detected directly, namely dark energy and dark matter.
There have been several controversial proposals to obviate the need for these
enigmatic forms of matter and energy, by modifying the laws governing gravity and
the dynamics of cosmic expansion, for example Modified Newtonian Dynamics.
Research on general relativity is rich with possibilities for further exploration:
mathematical relativists explore the nature of singularities and the fundamental
properties of Einstein's equations,and the race for the first direct detection of
gravitational waves continues apace. More than ninety years after the theory was first
published, research is more active than ever.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.GRAVITATION AND COSMOLOGY STEVEN WEINBERG
2.LECTURE NOTES PROFESSOR ANIRBAN KUNDU
3.WIKIPEDIA