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The indeterministic character of physical laws is generally considered to be the most important consequence of quantum physics. A deterministic point of view, however, together with the possibility of well defined Hamiltonian trajectories,…
An examination of the propagation of intense 200 fs pulses in water reveals light filaments not sustained by the balance between Kerr-induced self-focusing and plasma-induced defocusing. Their appearance is interpreted as the consequence of…
The refraction of light by dispersion-free dielectric media can be modeled using well-localized macroscopic wave packets, enabling a description in terms of pseudo-particles. This approach is often used in thought experiments to illustrate…
Light displays particle and wave properties within the bounds of the inequality, K^2+V^2<=1, where K represents particle information and V represents corresponding wave information. Using two laser beams that cross and then diverge from…
Photons have been a flagship system for studying quantum mechanics, advancing quantum information science, and developing quantum technologies. Quantum entanglement, teleportation, quantum key distribution and early quantum computing…
Coherent emission of light by free charged particles is ubiquitous in many areas of physics and engineering, with the light's properties believed to be successfully captured by classical electromagnetism in all relevant experimental…
It is shown that a detailed sub microscopic consideration denies the wave-particle duality for both material particles and field particles, such as photons. In the case of particles, their \psi-wave function is interpreted as the particle's…
Textbooks state that the successful application of Maxwell's Equations in physical optics problems requires light to interact with matter where any inhomogeneities are spaced by less than or equal to the wavelength of light; the 'dense'…
The properties of light in the presence of electromagnetic and gravitational fields are compared. Once one takes account of the fact that clock rates vary with distance from a massive object, it is argued that in an absolute sense light…
Classical theory asserts that several electromagnetic waves cannot interact with matter if they interfere destructively to zero, whereas quantum mechanics predicts a nontrivial light-matter dynamics even when the average electric field…
In this letter a new formula for light deflection is derived using only physically observable concepts. The general result is specialized to cosmological perturbation theory and expressed in terms of gauge--invariant perturbation variables.…
In this paper we regard the dynamics obtained from Fermat principle as begin the classical theory of light. We (first-)quantize the action and show how close we can get to the Maxwell theory. We show that Quantum Geometric Optics is not a…
The University of Maryland (UMD) Biology Education and Physics Education Research Groups are investigating students' views on the role of physics in introductory biology courses. This paper presents data from an introductory course that…
Throughout all years of study, students of physics are confronted with the question 'what exactly is light?' - a question that is impossible to answer correctly and, therefore, continuously discussed within the framework of models. Numerous…
Quantum physics, which describes the strange behavior of light and matter at the smallest scales, is one of the most successful descriptions of reality, yet it is notoriously inaccessible. Here we provide an approachable explanation of…
The aim of "A glance beyond the quantum model" [arXiv:0907.0372] to modernize the Correspondence Principle is compromised by an assumption that a classical model must start with the idea of particles, whereas in empirical terms particles…
Quantum optics and classical optics have coexisted for nearly a century as two distinct, self-consistent descriptions of light. What influences there were between the two domains all tended to go in one direction, as concepts from classical…
In offered work short historical excursus to the classical theory of light is presented: Grimaldi, Fermat, Newton, Huygens, Young, Fresnel, Fraunhofer, and Gauss. The ray analog of wave model of light and Huygens-Fresnel's elementary waves…
Light and spectroscopy are among the most important and frequently taught topics in introductory, college-level, general education astronomy courses. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of observational data studied by…
Quantum optics potentially offers an information channel from the Universe beyond the established ones of imaging and spectroscopy. All existing cameras and all spectrometers measure aspects of the first-order spatial and/or temporal…