Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2020/paper-1/11/b/i/solution

Write . Then and , so the condition fixes the sum of distances from and . It is an ellipse with centre , vertical semimajor axis , and focal distance . Its horizontal semiminor axis obeys . Thus the locus is
The vertices are and ; the horizontal extremities are . The complex conjugation places the second focus above the origin.
Figure 1.
Distance-sum loci in the complex plane: an ellipse and its limiting segment
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