Abstract
We present a pedagogical introduction to gravitational theory, with the main focus on weak gravitational fields. We begin with a thorough survey of Newtonian gravitational theory. After a brief introduction to general relativity, we develop the post-Minkowskian formulation of the field equations, which is ideally suited to studying weak-field gravity. We then discuss applications of this formulation, including post-Newtonian theory, the parametrized post-Newtonian framework, and gravitational radiation.
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Notes
- 1.
From 1998 to 2011, CMW chaired the NASA Science Advisory Committee for GP-B.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation under grant PHY 09-65133. Much of this work was completed while the author was at Washington University in St. Louis. I am also grateful to the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, where part of this work was completed. This chapter is based in part on the forthcoming book Gravitation: Newtonian, post-Newtonian, Relativistic, by Eric Poisson and Clifford Will. I am grateful to my coauthor and our publisher Cambridge University Press for permission to use parts of that text in the present chapter.
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Will, C. (2016). Gravity: Newtonian, Post-Newtonian, and General Relativistic. In: Peron, R., Colpi, M., Gorini, V., Moschella, U. (eds) Gravity: Where Do We Stand?. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20224-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20224-2_2
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