Contact: diego.saez[AT]uva.esLocation: Barcelona, Spain
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity has provided until now a most successful and accurate framework to fit the results of cosmological observations in a very wide range of scales; thus yielding, at the same time, a very convenient way to model our knowledge of the Universe and to understand its origin and evolution from the very basic and logical principles that led Einstein to formulate his field equations. However, in recent years some discrepancies have appeared, which have prompted the study of modified versions of GR. Moreover, important issues affecting both the original and the modified theories, such as inflation, primordial gravitational waves (from primordial tensor perturbations), scalar cosmological perturbations, singularities of different kinds appearing in the solutions, etc., need to be addressed.
And all these issues should be viewed with a very wide scope, considering the different subjects in depth separately, but also under a comprehensive and inclusive view, which will take into account all details of each issue: from its theoretical formulation to the effective calculations using numerical up-to-day methods (e.g. python and other); albeit never losing the necessary perspective that will shed light in our search of new procedures and discoveries. In our ultimate quest to better understand the Universe.
This will be the aim of the present Summer School, which is for the first time two-week long and that counts among its lecturers with some of the most prominent international specialists in the different fields covered by the Summer School. A way of celebrating that our Institute has recently been awarded the prestigious “Maria de Maeztu” distinction of excellence.
TOPICS
Modifying General Relativity: Different approaches
Reconstruction of Modified Gravity Theories
Inflation, cosmological perturbations
Python Lectures: Programming from Newtonian Gravity to Dark Energy and Primordial Gravitational Waves
Neutron Star Equation of State
Basic concepts and elements of black hole physics: Solutions and singularities
Wormholes
Supergravity
Zeta Function approach to cosmology
Historical notes: the quest to understand our Universe