Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics

Clifford M. Will is Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Florida and Chercheur Associé at the institut d'Astrophysique de Paris. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation.

'Throughout, the text is well written and the presentation is easy to follow … The content is presented in full formal rigour, as appropriate for such a book. The text is in the style of a monograph, referenced to scientific publications throughout and supported by a number of black-and-white figures. It can be recommended to readers on the level of advanced undergraduates and above, either to accompany a course in gravitational physics, or for other studies of gravitation in the frame of general relativity with a special focus on possible and actually performed tests, their experimental implementation, and their implications for theory.' Manuel Vogel, Contemporary Physics

• Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. The Einstein equivalence principle; 3. Gravitation as a geometric phenomenon; 4. The parametrized post-Newtonian formalism; 5. Metric theories of gravity and their post-Newtonian limits; 6. Equations of motion in the PPN formalism; 7. The classical tests; 8. Tests of the strong equivalence principle; 9. Other tests of post-Newtonian gravity; 10. Structure and motion of compact objects; 11. Gravitational radiation; 12. Strong-field and dynamical tests of relativistic gravity; Index.