Photons are being treated as both particles and wave. From the postulates of special relativity and inverse square law, it is equally likely for all other charges surrounding a charge to register information about its presence with certain strength irrespective of the distance of separation. A new method of apparent position of charges is being proposed using which photon is treated as a spherical shell of information with its radius increasing at a rate of speed of light. With this approach, the presence of photon at many places at the same time in a double slit experiment can be explained which can also be extended to matter waves. Based on the mutual separation between all charges and relative speeds, this paper discusses the strength of information i.e energy of photon to be registered at each charge, generation of new information after registering old information and its strength. This paper also discusses the factors resulting in attenuation of information while it is propagating, concern on single photon detectors, applications for renewable energy devices and an insight into quantum mechanical and general relativistic aspects of the new approach.
Photons are being treated as both particles and wave. From the postulates of special relativity and inverse square law, it is equally likely for all other charges surrounding a charge to register information about its presence with certain strength irrespective of the distance of separation. A new method of apparent position of charges is being proposed using which photon is treated as a spherical shell of information with its radius increasing at a rate of speed of light. With this approach, the presence of photon at many places at the same time in a double slit experiment can be explained which can also be extended to matter waves. Based on the mutual separation between all charges and relative speeds, this paper discusses the strength of information i.e energy of photon to be registered at each charge, generation of new information after registering old information and its strength. This paper also discusses the factors resulting in attenuation of information while it is propagating, concern on single photon detectors, applications for renewable energy devices and an insight into quantum mechanical and general relativistic aspects of the new approach.
The puzzles of quantum mechanics are: 1. what is the medium for the photon and for the electron wave? i.e. what is waving? 2. particle interference pattern 3. observer effect. 4. entanglement. In Quantum Erasure and Double-Slit experiments, how does the emitter know to direct the photon two both slits or only to one slit? And how does the detector know where to detect the photons to form an interference pattern and not a bell-shaped (Gaussian) pattern or vice versa? This paper proposes a few, closely related, simple and subtle laws of nature governing quantum phenomena. Some of the findings in this paper are: 1. A photon is emitted in two steps: the creation of photon path and the emission of the photon 2. Although (almost) all of the energy of the photon is localized in space, the photon extends to infinity. An extremely small energy of the photon, which we call the 'precursor wave' in this paper, extends to infinity. The instant the photon is emitted, its precursor wave creates a path to infinity; it appears instantaneously in all its path to infinity, with infinitely small energy density. The precursor wave serves as the 'highway' for the propagation of the main energy packet. However, to conserve the principle of causality, we assume that the tip of the photon propagates at a speed billions times the speed of light. Thus, there are two speeds associated with the photon: the speed we know as c and the speed at which the photon length increases. 2. A photon will be emitted only towards an absorber. A photon is emitted by the interaction of the emitter and a detector. It is obvious that a photon will not be emitted if there is no emitter. Nor will a photon be emitted if there is no detector . Once a photon is emitted, however, it exists objectively, autonomously. The photon is emitted only after its path is determined by the interaction of the emitter and the absorber, at the instant of emission. 3. The photon energy will be concentrated where there is higher wave amplitude, i.e higher intensity of oscillation of electric and magnetic fields. This results in 'dragging' of the electromagnetic energy by the wave, hence eliminating the need for any medium. It is also proposed that single photon interference is a quantum phenomenon whereas two photon interference is a classical phenomenon. Similar laws hold for the electron. The 'medium' for the electron wave is the electron (the electron mass density field) itself. Where there is higher intensity of electron wave/oscillation, there will be higher electron mass density. This means that the electron wave 'drags' the electron with itself. Therefore, no exotic 'medium' is required for the photon and for the electron wave.
Within the framework of the ‘Pairwise Interference Model’ of light–matter interaction, it is postulated that light particles follow definite trajectories, and thus, for example, in the double-slit experiment, a particle can pass through only one of the two slits. On this premise, the interference of two photons is examined in greater detail. It is hypothesized that the interference of a photon pair requires the involvement of matter and, initially, that both molecular excitations and photons oscillate at the same frequency and that the continuity of the oscillation is not disrupted by absorption and emission. The molecular excitations in the light source are supposed to oscillate synchronously. Both photons arrive at the same point on the detector but may travel along different paths and therefore arrive at different times. Under these conditions, their phase difference, φ(2) – φ(1), is always zero. Consequently, no interference pattern can form on the detector screen and therefore the assumptions made are incorrect. Alternatively, one may assume that only the photon oscillates, whereas the excitation stores the phase, φ, possessed by the photon at the instant of absorption. In this case, φ(2) – φ(1) corresponds to the difference in travel times modulo the oscillation period, and an interference pattern can form. However, this assumption is problematic for some reasons: the nature of the matter-based memory remains unclear; according to the special theory of relativity, no time elapses for a particle travelling at the speed of light, meaning that it cannot oscillate; and the assumption contradicts Bohr’s correspondence principle. In a classical wave, the phase information propagates away from the source at the wave velocity without changing. This leads to the alternative possibility that the excitations oscillate, whereas the photons do not. Instead, the photons transport information about the phase of the excitation at the instant of emission. As can be shown, in this case, φ(2) – φ(1) likewise corresponds to the difference in travel times modulo the oscillation period. However, this hypothesis contradicts the de Broglie postulate, according to which all particles exhibit wave properties, and the relation ε = hν must therefore be interpreted differently. It also raises the question of how the dimensions of a laser, specifically the mirror separation, can influence the wavelength of the amplified light if a photon has no wavelength. Using replicator dynamics and the ‘Pairwise Interference Model’ of light–matter interaction, a simulation demonstrates that, in a simplified laser model, assuming that photons do not oscillate whereas excitations do, self-organisation gives rise to a phase pattern in the sequence of photons within the emitted light beam that corresponds to the pattern obtained by discretising a classical wave. Thus, coherent light can exhibit wave properties even if photons themselves do not. Finally, the possibility of how incoherent light acquires wave properties is briefly discussed.
This article begins with the double-slit interference experiment involving photons. By proposing three laws regarding the behavior of photons as they pass through double slits and defining boundary condition functions using Weierstrass function, we derive the probability density of a photon landing at any point in the space behind the two slits as a function of time. By examining various angles of photon incidence, we conclude that the formula for information transmission within a photon wave packet is v=c/cosα. Here, v represents the propagation speed of information in different directions, α represents the angle between the direction of information transmission and the direction of photon propagation. Relativity is a special case where α=0. By solving the photon wave function equation, it is concluded that causal relationships are not easily disrupted at the macroscopic level, but they can be at the quantum level.
The photon is modeled as a monochromatic solution of Maxwell’s equations confined as a soliton wave by the principle of causality of special relativity. The soliton travels rectilinearly at the speed of light. The solution can represent any of the known polarization (spin) states of the photon. For circularly polarized states the soliton’s envelope is a circular ellipsoid whose length is the observed wavelength (λ), and whose diameter is λ/π; this envelope contains the electromagnetic energy of the wave (hv = hc/λ). The predicted size and shape is confirmed by experimental measurements: of the sub‐picosecond time delay of the photo‐electric effect, of the attenuation of undiffracted transmission through slits narrower than the soliton’s diameter of λ/π, and by the threshold intensity required for the onset of multiphoton absorption in focussed laser beams. Inside the envelope the wave’s amplitude increases linearly with the radial distance from the axis of propagation, being zero on the axis. Outside the envelope the wave is evanescent with an amplitude that decreases inversely with the radial distance from the axis. The evanescent wave is responsible for the observed double‐slit interference phenomenon.
This article begins with the double-slit interference experiment involving photons. By proposing three laws regarding the behavior of photons as they pass through double slits and defining boundary condition functions using Weierstrass function, we derive the probability density of a photon landing at any point in the space behind the two slits as a function of time. By examining various angles of photon incidence, we conclude that the formula for information transmission within a photon wave packet is v=c/cosα. Here, v represents the propagation speed of information in different directions, α represents the angle between the direction of information transmission and the direction of photon propagation. Relativity is a special case where α=0. By solving the photon wave function equation, it is concluded that causal relationships are not easily disrupted at the macroscopic level, but they can be at the quantum level.
All quantum physical phenomena are maximally closed. Thus, if a photon emitted by a source later is registered in a detector, it is not meaningful “to try to find out what might have happened to the photon on its travel from source to detector.” To find out means to make an experiment. Hence, if a new detector is placed somewhere on the photon route, one has a new phenomenon. In a double-slit experiment the wave interference disappears if one tries to determine which way the particle went. Such mutually exclusive (complementary) particle and wave experiments, represent in the words of Bohr [27], “a rational generalization of classical physics.” To obtain human knowledge of the photon we must make observations.