Related papers: Photon position eigenvectors lead to complete phot…
One and two photon wave functions are derived by projecting the quantum state vector onto simultaneous eigenvectors of the number operator and a recently constructed photon position operator [Phys. Rev A 59, 954 (1999)] that couples spin…
In biorthogonal quantum mechanics, the eigenvectors of a quasi-Hermitian operator and those of its adjoint are biorthogonal and complete and the probability for a transition from a quantum state to any one of these eigenvectors is positive…
One and two photon wave functions are obtained by projection onto a basis of simultaneous eigenvectors of the position and number operators.
The paper provides three main definitions of the Cartesian photon position operator based on: boost generator, the transversality condition and the helicity operator. In each case, the correctness of the definition and Hermitianness of the…
We extend a procedure for construction of the photon position operators with transverse eigenvectors and commuting components [Phys. Rev. A 59, 954 (1999)] to body rotations described by three Euler angles. The axial angle can be made a…
A general form of the photon position operator with commuting components fulfilling some natural axioms is obtained. This operator commutes with the photon helicity operator, is Hermitian with respect to the Bialynicki-Birula scalar product…
We extend classical Maxwell field theory to a first quantized theory of the photon by deriving a conserved Lorentz four-current whose zero component is a positive definite number density. Fields are real and their positive (negative)…
The expressions of the eigenfunctions of the Hawton photon position operator in the configuration space are derived for several classes of wave function, including the Riemann-Silberstein and Landau-Peierls cases. Although these…
It is shown that the photon position operator $\hat{\vec{X}}$ with commuting components can be written in the momentum representation as $\hat{\vec{X}}=i \hat{\vec{D}}$, where $\hat{\vec{D}}$ is a flat connection in the tangent bundle…
A first quantized free photon is a complex massless vector field $A=(A^\mu)$ whose field strength satisfies Maxwell's equations in vacuum. We construct the Hilbert space $\mathscr{H}$ of the photon by endowing the vector space of the fields…
It had been a long standing problem that there is no consistent definition of photon position operator nor photon number density in the context of quantum theory. In this paper we derive the photon detection operator, which defines location…
In this article, we show that in the level of quantum mechanics, a photon position operator with commuting components can be obtained in a more natural way; in the level of quantum field theory, the photon position operator corresponds to…
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…
We find that biorthogonal quantum mechanics with a scalar product that counts both absorbed and emitted particles leads to covariant position operators with localized eigenvectors. In this manifestly covariant formulation the probability…
In contrast to wave functions in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics interpreted as probability amplitudes, wave functions in relativistic quantum mechanics have generalized meanings such as charge-density amplitudes, energy-density…
We show that the position operator with commuting components proposed by M. Hawton [M. Hawton, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 59}, 954 (1999)] and developed in subsequent papers, including the recent ones, does not have the properties required for a…
Applications that envisage utilizing the orbital angular momentum (OAM) at the single photon level assume that the OAM degrees of freedom that the photons inherit from the classical wave solutions are orthogonal. To test this critical…
It is shown that a Dirac(-type) equation for a rank-two bi-spinor field on Minkowski (configuration) spacetime furnishes a Lorentz-covariant quantum-mechanical wave equation in position-space representation for a single free photon. This…
The postulate that coordinate and momentum representations are related to each other by the Fourier transform has been accepted from the beginning of quantum theory by analogy with classical electrodynamics. As a consequence, an inevitable…
Based on the quantized electromagnetic field described by the Riemann-Silberstein complex vector $F$, we construct the eigenvector set of $% F$, which makes up an orthonormal and complete representation. In terms of $% F $ we then introduce…