Relativistic effects in Lyman-α forest

We present the calculation of the Lyman-alpha (Lyman-α) transmitted flux fluctuations with full relativistic corrections to the first order. Even though several studies exist on relativistic effects in galaxy clustering, this is the first study to extend the formalism to a different tracer of underlying matter at unique redshift range (z=2-5). Furthermore, we show a comprehensive application of our calculations to the Quasar-Lyman-α cross-correlation function. Our results indicate that the signal of relativistic effects are sizeable at Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale mainly due to the large differences in density bias factors of our tracers. We construct an observable, the anti-symmetric part of the cross-correlation function, that is dominated by the relativistic signal and offers a new way to measure the relativistic terms at relatively small scales. The analysis shows that relativistic effects are important when considering cross-correlations between tracers with very different biases, and should be included in the data analysis of the current and future surveys. Moreover, the idea presented in this paper is highly complementary to other techniques and observables trying to isolate the effect of the relativistic corrections and thus test the validity of the theory of gravity beyond the Newtonian regime.