Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-1-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2016/6/solution

Let describe the direction towards the star, measured from the Earth's positive direction of motion. The arriving photon propagates in the opposite direction, so in the stellar frame its four-momentum has
A Lorentz transformation into the Earth's frame, moving at along , gives
The observed stellar bearing is opposite to the transformed photon momentum. Since a photon satisfies ,
This is relativistic aberration. For small , : stellar directions shift towards the direction of the observer's motion. Keeping the distinction between stellar bearing and photon propagation direction explains the plus signs.

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