Paper detail

Tetrad formalism for exact cosmological observables

The standard description of cosmological observables is incomplete, because it does not take into account the correct angular parametrization of the sky, i.e. the one determined by the observer frame. The corresponding corrections must be taken into account for reliable results at non-linear orders. This can be accomplished by introducing an orthonormal basis, or "tetrad", at the observer point, representing the frame with respect to which observations are performed. In this work we consider the tetrad formulation of General Relativity, thus associating tetrads to sources as well, and develop a new formalism for describing cosmological observables associated with localized sources. It is based on a manifold which we call the "observer space-time", whose coordinates are the proper time, redshift and angles an observer uses to parametrize measurements, and on which the rest of the observables are defined. This manifold does not have to be diffeomorphic to the true space-time and allows us to resolve caustics in the latter, in contrast to similar coordinate-based formalisms. As a concrete example, we work out the definitions and equations for the angular diameter distance, weak lensing and number count observables. As for the observables associated to the CMB, they lie inside the phase space distribution of the photon fluid, so we also revisit the construction of general-relativistic matrix kinetic theory from the tetrad formalism viewpoint. Here too the latter appears as the natural approach for relating the macroscopic dynamics to the microscopic quantum field theory, and therefore for constructing the matrix Boltzmann equations, without any approximation on the gravitational side. (... more in the manuscript)