I'm having difficulties in calculating the angular size of the causally connected regions on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as seen from Earth today. I read in several documents that this angle is of about 1∘, but most authors are giving only crude hand waving arguments about that number. See for example that page (look at the last two paragraphs):
https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sept02/Kinney/Kinney4_2.html
I'm trying to reproduce that value by explicit calculations from the standard FLRW metric, in the case of a spatially flat geometry (k=0): ds2=dt2−a2(t)(dx2+dy2+dz2). At observation time tobs (today: tobs≈13,8 Gyears), the proper distance from a given source (emitting light at time tem≈300 000 years) is given by ds2=0 (light-like spacetime intervall): D(tobs,tem)=a(tobs)∫tobstem1a(t)dt. For example, this distance to the CMB surface, in the case of a dust universe, is found with the scale factor a(t)∝t2/3: D=3(tobs−t2/3obst1/3em). This gives D≈40,2 Gly (more accurate models with radiation gives about 42 or 45 Gly).
Now, the causally correlated regions on the CMB sphere should have a proper radius of (considering the dust only universe): Rcausal=a(tem)∫tem01a(t)dt=3tem, i.e. Rcausal≈9×105 ly. As seen from Earth, the angular size of a causal patch should have an angular size αcausal of: αcausal=2arctan(RcausalD)≈0.003∘. Of course, this is much too short, and I'm probably doing a naive calculation. I don't know where I'm making a mistake.
How should I fix the angular size (5)?
EDIT: Apparently, the right formula fixing (5) is the following (the factor 2 is to get the full angular diameter, and not just the angular radius of the causal patch): αcausal=2arctan(∫tem01a(t)dt∫tobtem1a(t)dt), but I don't understand why the angle is found by the ratio of the comoving lenghts instead of the proper lenghts.
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