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Spacetime modeled by four pointwise orthonormal vector fields

A frame field in general relativity (also called a tetrad or vierbein) is a set of four pointwise orthonormal vector fields, one timelike and three spacelike, defined on a Lorentzian manifold that is physically interpreted as a model of spacetime. The timelike unit vector field is often denoted by and the three spacelike unit vector fields by All tensorial quantities defined on the manifold can be expressed using the frame field and its dual coframe field. Frame fields were introduced into general relativity by Albert Einstein in 1928 and by Hermann Weyl in 1929. The index notation for tetrads is explained in tetrad (index notation).

Frame fields of a Lorentzian manifold always correspond to a family of ideal observers immersed in the given spacetime; the integral curves of the timelike unit vector field are the worldlines of these observers, and at each event along a given worldline, the three spacelike unit vector fields specify the spatial triad carried by the observer. The triad may be thought of as defining the spatial coordinate axes of a local laboratory frame, which is valid very near the observer's worldline. In general, the worldlines of these observers need not be timelike geodesics. If any of the worldlines bends away from a geodesic path in some region, we can think of the observers as test particles that accelerate by using ideal rocket engines with a thrust equal to the magnitude of their acceleration vector. Alternatively, if our observer is attached to a bit of matter in a ball of fluid in hydrostatic equilibrium, this bit of matter will in general be accelerated outward by the net effect of pressure holding up the fluid ball against the attraction of its own gravity. Other possibilities include an observer attached to a free charged test particle in an electrovacuum solution, which will of course be accelerated by the Lorentz force, or an observer attached to a spinning test particle, which may be accelerated by a spin–spin force. It is important to recognize that frames are geometric objects. That is, vector fields make sense (in a smooth manifold) independently of choice of a coordinate chart, and (in a Lorentzian manifold), so do the notions of orthogonality and length. Thus, just like vector fields and other geometric quantities, frame fields can be represented in various coordinate charts. Computations of the components of tensorial quantities, with respect to a given frame, will always yield the same result, whichever coordinate chart is used to represent the frame. These fields are required to write the Dirac equation in curved spacetime.

Coordinate basis vectors have the special property that their pairwise Lie brackets vanish. Except in locally flat regions, at least some Lie brackets of vector fields from a frame will not vanish. The resulting baggage needed to compute with them is acceptable, as components of tensorial objects with respect to a frame (but not with respect to a coordinate basis) have a direct interpretation in terms of measurements made by the family of ideal observers corresponding to the frame. Coordinate basis vectors can be null, which, by definition, cannot happen for frame vectors.

This article has focused on the application of frames to general relativity, and particularly on their physical interpretation. Here we very briefly outline the general concept. In an n dimensional Riemannian manifold or pseudo Riemannian manifold, a frame field is a set of orthonormal vector fields which forms a basis for the tangent space at each point in the manifold. This is possible globally in a continuous fashion if and only if the manifold is parallelizable. As before, frames can be specified in terms of a given coordinate basis, and in a non flat region, some of their pairwise Lie brackets will fail to vanish. In fact, given any inner product space , we can define a new space consisting of all tuples of orthonormal bases for Applying this construction to each tangent space yields the orthonormal frame bundle of a (pseudo )Riemannian manifold and a frame field is a section of this bundle. More generally still, we can consider frame bundles associated to any vector bundle, or even arbitrary principal fiber bundles. The notation becomes a bit more involved because it is harder to avoid distinguishing between indices referring to the base, and indices referring to the fiber. Many authors speak of internal components when referring to components indexed by the fiber.