xAct is a (free) suite of Mathematica packages for tensor calculus. The aim of this 5 hours course is to provide the elements to be able to work with perturbation theory and functional variation. The 5 hours course starts Wednesday 16/3/2016 at 1.30pm. The tentative program is: Wednesday (Room V13P) 1.30-2.30 pm: Introduction, manipulation of covariant objects Thursday (Sala de Juntes) 10.00-12.00 am Variational calculus. Perturbation calculus, the xCoba and xPand packages I Friday (Sala de Juntes) 10.00-12.00 am xCoba and xPand packages II. Worked out examples. The main examples of perturbations will be based on Friedmann-Robertson-Lemaitre-Walker and Schwarzschild metrics.

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This course is aimed for all staff member and student of the UB. However, because of limited room space we ask you to submit your participation via email to germani@icc.ub.edu. Requirements: Note that these classes will only focus on the use of xAct, thus it is required to have prior knowledge of General Relativity, perturbation theory and functional variations. Participants should come with their own laptop where xAct should be already pre-installed. To download and install the packages please visit http://www.xact.es/download.html. For any problem during the installation procedure please contact Emilio Bellini (emilio.bellini@icc.ub.edu) at least the week before the beginning of the classes (otherwise your request of help will be ignored). Please be in the class at least 10 minutes before to set up your computer. We will start sharp. Speaker: Emilio Bellini Organizers: Cristiano Germani and Emilio Bellini