Can relativistic abberation be observed in quasar jets?

W.RonG
Messages
48
Reaction score
0
Been reading about aberration and two explanations that diverge - classical and relativistic. at speeds much slower than c the angle is very small for either formulation. the stellar aberration that led Bradley to the explanation 300 years ago is less than a minute of arc. Has there been any observation of aberration angles such that it can be definitely ascribed to relativistic effects?
Thanks.
rg
 
Physics news on Phys.org
No. The relativistic correction is too small.
But it is good that SR keeps the aberration result.
 
aberration

W.RonG said:
Been reading about aberration and two explanations that diverge - classical and relativistic. at speeds much slower than c the angle is very small for either formulation. the stellar aberration that led Bradley to the explanation 300 years ago is less than a minute of arc. Has there been any observation of aberration angles such that it can be definitely ascribed to relativistic effects?
Thanks.
rg

Have an illuminating look at
Yuan Zhong Zhang Special Relativity and its experimentgal foundations (World Scientific
Singapore 1940) pp.153-154
 
W.RonG said:
Been reading about aberration and two explanations that diverge - classical and relativistic. at speeds much slower than c the angle is very small for either formulation. the stellar aberration that led Bradley to the explanation 300 years ago is less than a minute of arc. Has there been any observation of aberration angles such that it can be definitely ascribed to relativistic effects?
Thanks.
rg

I'm pretty sure relativistic aberration has been detected experimentally, but I don't have a specific reference to hand.
 
The angle of aberration is of the order of v/c, where v is the relative transverse velocity of a star. Observed aberration angles are of the order of 20 seconds of arc. The relativistic effect is an order v/c correction to this. Without a precise knowledge of the star's velocity, this v/c correction has not yet been observed.
The transverse Doppler shift probably has been observed.
 
W.RonG said:
Been reading about aberration and two explanations that diverge - classical and relativistic. at speeds much slower than c the angle is very small for either formulation. the stellar aberration that led Bradley to the explanation 300 years ago is less than a minute of arc. Has there been any observation of aberration angles such that it can be definitely ascribed to relativistic effects?
Thanks.
rg

Relativistic abberation is observed in the jets emmited from quasars orientated at certain angles. Matter is ejected from quasars at relative velocities of up to 0.99c and so this makes quasars a useful subject to study in the context of relativity. Some key words that are helpful for a search on this subject are: ("relativistic beaming" quasar blazar superluminal jets unification abberation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazar
http://dspace.nitle.org/bitstream/10090/545/1/EricDanielsonSpring07.pdf[/URL]
[url]http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v314/n6010/abs/314425a0.html[/url]
[PLAIN]http://antares.in2p3.fr/users/pradier/Miraall/node3.html[/URL]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
OK, so this has bugged me for a while about the equivalence principle and the black hole information paradox. If black holes "evaporate" via Hawking radiation, then they cannot exist forever. So, from my external perspective, watching the person fall in, they slow down, freeze, and redshift to "nothing," but never cross the event horizon. Does the equivalence principle say my perspective is valid? If it does, is it possible that that person really never crossed the event horizon? The...
In this video I can see a person walking around lines of curvature on a sphere with an arrow strapped to his waist. His task is to keep the arrow pointed in the same direction How does he do this ? Does he use a reference point like the stars? (that only move very slowly) If that is how he keeps the arrow pointing in the same direction, is that equivalent to saying that he orients the arrow wrt the 3d space that the sphere is embedded in? So ,although one refers to intrinsic curvature...
ASSUMPTIONS 1. Two identical clocks A and B in the same inertial frame are stationary relative to each other a fixed distance L apart. Time passes at the same rate for both. 2. Both clocks are able to send/receive light signals and to write/read the send/receive times into signals. 3. The speed of light is anisotropic. METHOD 1. At time t[A1] and time t[B1], clock A sends a light signal to clock B. The clock B time is unknown to A. 2. Clock B receives the signal from A at time t[B2] and...
Back
Top