All Questions
Tagged with spacetime general-relativity
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How to motivate that in presence of gravity the spacetime metric must be modified to $ds^2=g_{ab}(x)dx^adx^b$?
In the presence of a gravitational field, the spacetime metric, $$ds^2=\eta_{ab}dx^a dx^b,$$ should be changed to, $$ds^2=g_{ab}(x)dx^adx^b.$$ What are the convincing physical arguments that motivate ...
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Is there a location in the universe with the minimum rate of time dilation?
According to general relativity, time dilation occurs due to strong gravitational fields and high relative velocities, causing time to pass more slowly compared to observers in weaker gravitational ...
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Apparent paradox in general relativity wrt relative gravity, spacetime curvature and time dilation [closed]
Imagine Alice is near a massive black hole and Bob is on the Earth.
Obviously their gravitational fields are different for each other. In other words, their spacetime is flat for themselves but curved ...
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Does the Weyl tensor amount to tidal effects of gravity?
The Ricci tensor, for the spacetime surrounding the Earth, is zero, so the spacetime around the Earth is Ricci-flat.
The Riemann tensor though is not zero since spacetime certainly is curved. This ...
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Why does the warping of spacetime make objects move closer together?
I understand why the warping of spacetime affects moving objects, but why would it affect stationary ones if it even does? Would two completely stationary objects not move closer together because they ...
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How does spacetime curve around an object in superposition?
I'm trying to learn quantum mechanics and this is a question that came to mind. I tried searching for it online, but I couldn't find a good answer (or at least one I could understand). From what I ...
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Keplerian Frequency of Schwarzschild Black hole
The Keplerian frequency/ Orbital frequency is the inverse of orbital period and for Schwarzschild black hole it is given by $$\frac{1}{2\pi}\sqrt{\frac{M}{r^3}}.$$ its unit is Hertz. Now To express ...
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Are gravitons suggested as the cause of matter curving space?
My understand is that GR says that mass curves space but it does not say why or how this occurs. Is the idea of gravitons that they are the entities that actually affect space?
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Is the spacetime referred to in Einstein's field equations, spacetime constructed with inertial coordinates?
In general relativity, the curvature of spacetime is related to the presence of energy and momentum (the energy-momentum tensor) by Einstein's field equations: $$R_{\mu\upsilon} - \frac12Rg_{\mu\...
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How to mathematically describe the process of spacetime curvature?
I guess as a result of the energy-momentum tensor $T_{\mu\nu}$ coupling to a flat Minkowski metric, $\eta_{\mu\nu}$, the flat metric can become that of a curved spacetime, $g_{\mu\nu}$. How can one ...
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How would objects move in a linear gravitational field?
In General Relativity, gravity is described as the curvature of spacetime caused by mass. This curvature is often visualized as a straight path bending due to a warped surface. My question is: If, ...
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What is the current most widely-accepted explanation of gravity? [closed]
What do physicists typically say gives gravity the ability to act on a pair of objects?
I am not asking for a description of gravity as a scalar field, but rather what the current accepted theory is ...
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What’s the condition to form an astrophysical wormhole?
According to GR, what’s the mechanism for a star to form a wormhole? How is it different from collapsing to a black hole? What’s the energy scale required?
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Reducing Tensor-rank by fixing an argument
Assume for example that you are given a (2,0) tensor $T^{\mu\nu}$ and you want to create
a vector, i.e., a (1,0) tensor out of it. Is it possible to just fix an index of
$T^{\mu\nu}$ while keeping the ...
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Example of lightlike curve that's not a geodesic in Lorentz spacetime [duplicate]
Let $(M,g)$ be a 4 dimensional Lorentz spacetime. A smooth curve $\alpha:\ I\to M$ is called lightlike if $\alpha'(s)\in TM_{\alpha(s)}$ is lightlike for all $s\in I$, which means
$$g_{\alpha(s)}\big(\...
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