The advanced lecture course "Selected topics in the theories of gravity" is given once in several years, with the focus changing each time according to the interests of the staff and students. While last year the course focused on treating astrophysical objects like black holes and stars in different extensions of general relativity, this year the emphasis is more on understanding the logic behind constructing a theory and checking its characteristics like the number of degrees of freedom and presence or absence of various instabilities. The specialized aspect of the course is to introduce non-Riemannian geometry and some important theories based on it. We will discuss how they differ from their GR counterparts, thus touching a cutting edge of research. In the end of June there will be MaffGrav2022 workshop in Tartu, and the topics of the course are envisioned to help to prepare for and benefit from the workshop.
There will be 16 lectures, accompanied by homework questions and problems. The lectures take place on Mondays at 12:15 till 13:45 EET (check the local time!) in Physicum room A102 and broadcast online in the BigBlueButton classroom. The recordings of the lectures will be available to see later at BBB. The homework is managed on the university e-learning system moodle.ut.ee. Doing the self-check tests and reflection tasks as well as solving the homework problems about each topic would complete the course worth 3 ECTS (no extra exam). The planned list of topics and the respective time schedule can be seen at the UT Study Information System.
For students from abroad who want to actively participate online, we have declared the course also as a MOOC ("massive open online course"). Access to moodle.ut.ee will be opened and communicated to those who register at the MOOC page (use the link at the bottom of that page). A successful completion of all the tests and homework will grant the digital certificate of the MOOC (no extra charge). However, it is possible to follow the lectures without attempting the homework and getting the certificate, just use the BigBlueButton.
Registration deadline is 01.03.2022. You can find further details here.