Choose the incident photon along the direction. Conservation of four-momentum preserves the squared total energy invariant . Initially,
In the centre-of-momentum frame let the outgoing photon energy be ; the larger particle has opposite momentum magnitude and energy . Thus
Conversely, whenever , the positive value constructs a final state with the required invariant, which can be boosted to the laboratory frame. The limiting photon excitation threshold with a soft final photon is therefore
Strictly, an outgoing physical photon requires ; the printed minimum is the threshold infimum approached as the final photon becomes soft.