Linked Questions

23 votes
2 answers
3k views

EM wave function & photon wavefunction

According to this review Photon wave function. Iwo Bialynicki-Birula. Progress in Optics 36 V (1996), pp. 245-294. arXiv:quant-ph/0508202, a classical EM plane wavefunction is a wavefunction (in ...
Jia Yiyang's user avatar
  • 3,895
5 votes
2 answers
2k views

Wave function of a photon?

Consider a single photon. Since it is not possible to create a photon with a certain frequency it can be characterized by a normalized frequency distribution $f(\nu)$ that is peaked around some mean ...
thyme's user avatar
  • 1,353
4 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why does a laser beam stay coherent when it passes through glass?

If I have a coherent laser beam and I shine it through some glass, the light will slow down because it will interact weakly with the atoms in the glass. However, the beam that comes out the other side ...
JJH's user avatar
  • 177
5 votes
5 answers
857 views

Why can't photons cancel each other?

The textbook argument against photons canceling each other draws upon the conservation of energy. Does this mean that energy conservation is a "stronger" principle than superposition? Waves ...
Tfovid's user avatar
  • 1,235
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Can we define a wave function of photon like a wave function of an electron? [duplicate]

By definition, the wave function can be obtained by acting the position eigenstate to a state of the system, e.g., $\langle x\vert \psi \rangle$. For the wave function of an electron travelling in one-...
Veteran's user avatar
  • 645
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Does a photon have a wave function or not?

I have read this question: Why doesn't there exist a wave function for a photon whereas it exists for an electron? where annav says: Here is the [wavefunction of the photon,][1] which is a ...
Árpád Szendrei's user avatar
3 votes
4 answers
305 views

Experimental suggestions for size and shape of single optical photon (wavepacket)?

Optical photon is an electromagnetic wave produced e.g. during deexcitation of an atom, carrying energy, momentum and angular momentum difference. So how is this electromagnetic energy distributed in ...
Jarek Duda's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
359 views

Describing the position of particles in QFT

Background As someone who has just finished my first year of undergrad, I don't really have any experience with QFT but have some experience with quantum mechanics and the math behind it. I have taken ...
mihirb's user avatar
  • 762
6 votes
2 answers
258 views

Where is a photon in space relative to the wave?

In electromagnetics you learn that an electromagnetic wave is a perturbation of the electric and magnetic fields that propagate in space according to the wave equation. This makes sense when you are ...
Mauro F.'s user avatar
  • 161
2 votes
1 answer
138 views

Fundamental Limits for Photon Detection

In quantum electrodynamics "photons don't have positions". The physical relevance and consequences of this fact has been discussed on this site 1. (Further relevant questions about the concept of ...
Adomas Baliuka's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
124 views

What is the physics corresponding to the "wave function of a single photon"?

Some of you may have seen my post yesterday which asked essentially the same question as I'm going to ask here and has since been deleted, for which I apologize. I noticed some egregious errors in my ...
Cody Payne's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
97 views

Without strict photon position observable (spatial probability density), how is the double slit experiment possible?

I have read this question: EM wave function & photon wavefunction Wave function of a photon? where Arnold Neumaier says: photons do not have a spatial probability density He specifically ...
Árpád Szendrei's user avatar