SPECIAL RELATIVITY
Academic year and teacher
If you can't find the course description that you're looking for in the above list,
please see the following instructions >>
- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- PAOLO NATOLI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- FIS/02
Training objectives
- Goal of this course is to provide solid expertise in special relativity. The student will acquire advanced notions on the phenenomenolgy of special relativity (Lorentz transformation and their consequences) and on relativistic kinematics and dynamics. Advanced arguments, for which the goal is to provide basic knowledge, include: covariant formalism, tensor notation, Lagarangian formulation, electromagnestism, introduction to special relativity
Prerequisites
- Knowledge of mechanics at the level of first year course in Physics, calculus at the level of second year. Basic notions on variational principles and electromagnetism (knowledge of Maxwell's equations). The latter two are useful, but not at all necessary, prerequisites,
Course programme
- Principle of relativity, historical ties with electromagnetism, constance of the speed of light (2 hours)
Inertia and inertial frames, synchronisation of clocks, Lorentz transformations, events and worldlines (4)
Intervals and Minkowski diagrams (2)
Length contraction (2)
Time dilation (2)
Proper time, velocity transformation and group properties of boosts (4)
Light aberration and Doppler effect (4)
Thomas precession (2)
Relativisti precession: fundamental law, momentum, angular momentum, energy, mass-energy equivalence, Lorentz transformations for energy and momentum (6)
Force transformations, action and reaction, particle motion (4)
Minkowski space: vectors, geometrical interpretation of Lorentz transformations, tensors, Einstein notation (4)
Lorentz group and algebra (2)
Covariant formulation of dynamics, four-velocity, four-acceleration, four-momentum (4)
Covariant Lagrangian formulation, free particle action and action in e.m. field (4)
Covariant formulation of electromagnetism: four-potential, four-current, Maxwell tensor (6)
Introduction to General Relativity (4) Didactic methods
- Blackboard (possibly virtual) lectures, exercises solved in class, additional material will be distributed if needed.
Learning assessment procedures
- Final exam will consist of a colloquium of about 45 minutes, typically around three questions. There is no written exam.
Reference texts
- V. Barone, Relatività, Principi e Applicazioni (Boringhieri)
Berkeley Physics Course, Vol 1, Mechanics (Cambridge)
H. Stephani, Relativity: An Introduction to Special and General Relativity (Cambridge). Advanced textbook.
