English

Electromagnetic fields, size, and copy of a single photon

Optics 2018-05-31 v4

Abstract

Photons are almost involved in each field of science and daily life of everyone. However, there are still some fundamental and puzzling questions such as what a photon is.The expressions of electromagnetic fields of a photon are here proposed. On the basis of the present expressions, we calculate the energy, momentum, and spin angular momentum of a photon, derive the relations between the photon size and wavelength, and reveal the differences between a photon and its copy. The results show that the present expressions properly describe the particle characteristics of a photon; the length of a photon is half of the wavelength, and the radius is proportional to square root of the wavelength; a photon can ionize a hydrogen atom at the ground state only if its radius is less than the Bohr radius; a photon and its copy have the phase difference of {\pi} and constitute a phase-entangled photon pair; the phase-entangled n-photon train results from the sequential stimulated emissions and belongs to the Fock state. A laser beam is an ensemble of the n-photon trains and belongs to the coherent state. The threshold power of a laser is equal to the power of the n-photon train. These provide a bridge between the wave theory of light and quantum optics and will further advance research and application of the related fields.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.03869,
  title  = {Electromagnetic fields, size, and copy of a single photon},
  author = {Shan-Liang Liu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.03869},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

4 pages, crrected typos, improved some descriptions and references

R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:31:38.728Z