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Regarding two-slit experiment against photons makes me conclude, that both frequency and phase of electormagnetic wave and photon wavefunction coincide in space and time.

Am I right?

If I am right and these two objects are located equally, doesn't it mean, that for EM waves of low frequency we see wavefunction itself? Particularly, for example, for radiowaves the EM wave is observable and, therefore, the wavefunction is also observable.

If this reasoning is wrong, then why?


The following answer What equation describes the wavefunction of a single photon? states that there is no non-relativistic equation of photon.

Which is true.

The following answer Relation between the electromagnetic wave and quantum wavefunction derives that it means that photon has no wavefunction, which is either not true or is not proven.

Absense of equation doesn't mean absense of the solution. For example, there is no equation for prime numbers, but this doesn't mean there are no prime numbers.

The wave function, by definition, is complex valued probability amplitude describing the probability of finding the particle in a given space time location (in a coordinate basis).

I don't see this can't be possible for photons.

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  • $\begingroup$ Photon wavefunction: physics.stackexchange.com/q/104537/226902 and physics.stackexchange.com/q/165003/226902. Regarding the double slit with photons: physics.stackexchange.com/q/172013/226902 $\endgroup$
    – Quillo
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 17:30
  • $\begingroup$ @Quillo I don't see any explicit explanations on why couldn't photon has wavefunction. Wavefunction is just a probability amplitude. $\endgroup$
    – Dims
    Commented Feb 21, 2023 at 8:47
  • $\begingroup$ Try having a look at the second part of the Conclusions section here arxiv.org/abs/0708.0831 "there are three notions of photon: excitation of a quantum field, elementary particle, what is detected by a photodetector": it is possible to define a wave function object associated to photons but, as you see, it seems like an involved procedure. $\endgroup$
    – Quillo
    Commented Feb 21, 2023 at 9:15

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An electromagnetic wave is a disturbance in the electromagnetic field. A quantum wavefunction is just a mathematical function that describes the behavior of a quantum system (which an electromagnetic wave is generally not). They are no more similar to each other than to a wave on a guitar string.

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