Friday 28 April 2023

Notes updated to 28.04.2023

The notes have been updated to include the last and final lecture. Thanks to all who participated, either live or by going through the videos/notes later on. 

This is not the final version of these notes, when I have a little time I plan to re-organise them a little bit to make a smoother logical flow. Whenever that happens, the notes will be uploaded to the shared folder and I'll mention it on this blog page.

Finally, thanks to Rajesh Gopakumar for his encouragement and ICTS for constant support that made this series happen. I particularly thank the AV staff and administrative staff for handling the practical issues, and Aditya Sharma and Omkar Shetye for coordination.

In future, comments/questions can still be posted on this blog, they reach my mailbox and I will try my best to respond. 


Tuesday 25 April 2023

Notes updated to 24.04.2023

  The lecture notes have been updated to 24.04.2023 and are available in the shared folder.

Sunday 23 April 2023

Notes updated to 21.04.2023

 The notes are now updated. I have put in a detailed explanation of why the Schwarzschild solution leads to trapped surfaces inside the horizon.

Tuesday 18 April 2023

Notes updated to 17.04.2023

 The lecture notes have been updated to 17.04.2023 and are available in the shared folder.


Saturday 15 April 2023

Thursday 13 April 2023

Updated list of topics for the course

Like all such lecture courses, one either has to extend the number of lectures or modify the ambitious initial plan of what will be covered! Unfortunately I cannot extend this course beyond 12 lectures due to other commitments. 

Therefore, a revised plan for this course is as follows.

List of topics:

  1. Brief review of basic General Relativity and relevant mathematics. [1]

  2. Geometry and topology of spacetimes: causality, Cauchy hypersurfaces, globally hyperbolic space-times. [3]

  3. Geodesics, focusing and Raychaudhuri equation. [2]

  4. Hawking and Penrose singularity theorems. [3]

  5. Black holes: brief review, causality properties, cosmic censorship, area theorem [2]

  6. Origins of black hole thermodynamics. [1]

Total: 12 lectures of 90 minutes each. [ ] = number of lectures assigned to each topic. 

If there is interest, later in 2023 I could give another set of lectures on Black Hole Thermodynamics including recent developments.

Notes updated to 28.04.2023

The notes have been updated to include the last and final lecture. Thanks to all who participated, either live or by going through the video...