Advanced topics in Special Relativity

Special Relativity (SR) is the foundation of all the theories of fundamental interactions, except gravity. It describes the structure of space-time that forms the basis of these theories, and thus of the standard model of particle physics. During the past 10 years we have seen a renaissance of fundamental special-relativistic experiments with modern laser optical methods enhancing the experimental status of SR by several orders of magnitude. So it will be worth understanding SR in its non-trivial details. Such an understanding is essential for quantum field theory, but it is also useful in other areas as modern astrophysics. In addition, there are some mathematical and conceptual delicacies that are seldom found in textbooks.