The Department was opened in 1960. Its first head was Professor Alexei Petrov. The department provides training for Master's Degree (Gravitation, Cosmology and Relativistic Astrophysics). The Department provides lectures and seminars in all mathematical disciplines and gives special courses in “Cosmology”, “Experimental Validation of General Relativity Theory”, “Quantum Field Theory”.

The Department conducts research in the field of the theory of gravitation, relativistic astrophysics and cosmology: invariant-group methods in general relativity theory; modified theories of gravitation; cosmological models and dark energy; physics of black holes and wormholes; supersymmetry and supergravitation; axion fields and their connection with the dark matter; quantum field theory in curved space-time; Casimir effect and its applications.