physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

, precisely in the

general theory of relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. ...

, post-Minkowskian expansions (PM) or post-Minkowskian approximations are mathematical methods used to find approximate solutions of

Einstein's equations In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the fo ...

by means of a power series development of the

metric tensor In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a metric tensor (or simply metric) is an additional structure on a manifold (such as a surface) that allows defining distances and angles, just as the inner product on a Euclidean space allo ...

. Unlike post-Newtonian expansions (PN), in which the series development is based on a combination of powers of the velocity (which must be negligible compared to that of light) and the gravitational constant, in the post-Minkowskian case the developments are based only on the gravitational constant, allowing analysis even at velocities close to that of light (relativistic). One of the earliest works on this method of resolution is that of Bruno Bertotti, published in

Nuovo Cimento ''Nuovo Cimento'' is a series of peer-reviewed scientific journals of physics. The series was first established in 1855, when Carlo Matteucci and Raffaele Piria started publishing ''Il Nuovo Cimento'' as the continuation of ''Il Cimento'', which ...

in 1956.

References

{{Reflist General relativity