A research field within general optical physics concerned with light and its material interaction: where light is modelled by full quantum mechanical description.
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votes
5answers
2k views
Does a photon interfere only with itself?
I sometimes hear statements like that:
Quantum-mechanically, interference pattern occurs due to quantum interference of wavefunction of a photon. Wavefunction of a single photon only interferes ...
9
votes
2answers
1k views
Virtual photon description of B and E fields
I continue to find it amazing that something as “bulky” and macroscopic as a static magnetic or electric field is actually a manifestation of virtual photons.
So putting on your QFT spectacles, look ...
3
votes
1answer
171 views
Linearizing Quantum Operators
I was reading an article on harmonic generation and came across the following way of decomposing the photon field operator.
$$ \hat{A}={\langle}\hat{A}{\rangle}I+ \Delta\hat{a}$$
The right hand side ...
5
votes
1answer
178 views
Matlab package: graphical calculus for quantum operations (esp. linear optics)
I need a matlab package that will make my life easier. I have quantum circuits with optical beam splitters, polarizing beam splitters and photodetectors. These circuits are getting very complicated ...
3
votes
0answers
49 views
uncertainty deviations for vacuum astronomy
Since i've done this question, i've been trying to improve and make more precise the statements regarding cosmic squeezed states and how different uncertainties affect the vacuum energy, but as it ...
9
votes
4answers
550 views
Nonlinear optics as gauge theory
the widely used approach to nonlinear optics is a Taylor expansion of the dielectric displacement field $\mathbf{D} = \epsilon_0\cdot\mathbf{E} + \mathbf{P}$ in a Fourier representation of the ...
17
votes
2answers
896 views
Rigorous justification for rotating wave approximation
Whenever I have encountered the rotating wave approximation, I have seen "the terms that we are neglecting correspond to rapid oscillations in the interaction Hamiltonian, so they will average to 0 in ...
7
votes
3answers
625 views
Can we transport energy over infinite distances through vacuum using light?
I know that light (or electromagnetic radiation in general) attenuates in intensity as the square of the distance it travels.
Why does it attenuate?
Are the photons being scattered by the medium ...
2
votes
0answers
118 views
Do Bell inequality violations appear instantly when the source is turned on, or do they increase over time?
This experimental Question is a result of reading a particular article on Bell violations. I addressed the e-mail below to the corresponding authors —because who knows, they might reply— but it is not ...
5
votes
1answer
255 views
Why can't fermions be affected by effective gravity in non-linear quantum electrodynamics?
Quantum electrodynamics based upon Euler-Heisenberg or Born-Infeld Lagrangians predict photons
to move according to an effective metric which is dependent on the background electromagnetic
field. In ...
4
votes
1answer
98 views
What Cat States of light have been experimentally produced?
I'm specifically looking for Schrödinger's Cat states involving superpositions of two, or if it's been done more, coherent states, i.e. monomodal states of the form ...
