Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Physics

Rainich-Type Conditions For Perfect Fluid Spacetimes, Dionisios Krongos, Charles G. Torre Dec 2014

Rainich-Type Conditions For Perfect Fluid Spacetimes, Dionisios Krongos, Charles G. Torre

Research Vignettes

In this worksheet we describe and illustrate a relatively simple set of new Rainich-type conditions on an n-dimensional spacetime which are necessary and sufficient for it to define a perfect fluid solution of the Einstein field equations. Procedures are provided which implement these Rainich-type conditions and which reconstruct the perfect fluid from the metric. These results provide an example of the idea of geometrization of matter fields in general relativity, which is a purely geometrical characterization of matter fields via the Einstein field equations.


Vector Spaces (Appendix B), Charles G. Torre Aug 2014

Vector Spaces (Appendix B), Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

Throughout this text we have noted that various objects of interest form a vector space. Here we outline the basic structure of a vector space. You may find it useful to refer to this Appendix when you encounter this concept in the text.


Taylor’S Theorem And Taylor Series (Appendix A), Charles G. Torre Aug 2014

Taylor’S Theorem And Taylor Series (Appendix A), Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

Taylor’s theorem and Taylor’s series constitute one of the more important tools used by mathematicians, physicists and engineers. They provides a means of approximating a function in terms of polynomials.


References And Suggestions For Further Reading (Appendix C), Charles G. Torre Aug 2014

References And Suggestions For Further Reading (Appendix C), Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

References and Suggestions for Further Reading (Appendix C)


Perihelion Precession In General Relativity, Charles G. Torre Apr 2014

Perihelion Precession In General Relativity, Charles G. Torre

Charles G. Torre

This is a Maple worksheet providing a relatively quick and informal sketch of a demonstration that general relativistic corrections to the bound Kepler orbits introduce a perihelion precession. Any decent textbook will derive this result. My analysis aligns with that found in the old text "Introduction to General Relativity", by Adler, Bazin and Schiffer. The plan of the analysis is as follows. * Model the planetary orbits as geodesics in the (exterior) Schwarzschild spacetime. * Compute the geodesic equations. * Simplify them using symmetries and first integrals. * Isolate the differential equation expressing the radial coordinate as a function of …