Relativity and Aberration

Abstract

The established way of looking at special relativity is based on Einstein postulates: the principle of relativity and the constancy of the velocity of light. In the most general geometric approach to the theory of special relativity, the principle of relativity, in contrast to Einstein formulation, is only a consequence of the (pseudo-Euclidean) geometry of space-time. The space-time geometric approach deals with all possible choices of coordinates (clock synchronization conventions) of the chosen reference frames. In previous papers, we pointed out the very important role that the space-time geometric approach plays in accelerator engineering. The purpose of this paper is to provide a novel insight into the problem of aberration of light based on the space-time geometric approach. We will investigate the case of a plane-polarized light wave reflected from mirrors moving tangentially to its surface. It is generally believed that there is no aberration (deviation of the energy transport) for light reflected from mirrors moving transversely (also for light transmitted through a hole in the moving opaque screen or, consequently, through a moving open end of the telescope barrel). We show that this typical textbook statement is incorrect. The aberration of starlight seems to be one of the simplest phenomena of astronomical observations. The lack of symmetry, between the cases when either the source or detector is moving is shown clearly on the basis of the separation of binary stars. Such aberration is not observed. We have shown that the fact that we do not see myriads of widely separated binaries in wild gyration does not require any fundamental change of outlook, but it does require that aberration of "distant" stars should be treated in the framework of space-time geometric approach.