The quantum oscillator model of electromagnetic excitations revisited
Quantum Physics
2023-12-13 v1
Abstract
We revisit the quantum oscillator model of the electromagnetic field and conclude that, while the nonlocal positive and negative frequency ladder operators generate a photon Fock basis, the Hermitian field operators obtained by second quantization of real Maxwell fields describe photon-antiphoton pairs that couple locally to Fermionic matter and can be modeled classically. Their commutation relations define a scalar product that can be the basis of a first quantized theory of single photons. Since a one-photon state collapses to a zero-photon state when the photon is counted, the field describing it must be interpreted as a probability amplitude.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.2312.06870,
title = {The quantum oscillator model of electromagnetic excitations revisited},
author = {Margaret Hawton},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.06870},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
5 pages no figures