Gravity: Newtonian, post-Newtonian, and general relativistic

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.