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Infrared Remote Sensing and Instrumentation

Developing causal interpretations for high and low level light used in quantum remote sensing

Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri

Published Sep 9, 2019• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present observational and causality arguments to underscore that a better model for light is a “hybrid photon” wave packet. At the moment of quantum transitions, the electromagnetic energy is embedded in the transient quantum, hν. But, it immediately evolves into a diffractively spreading classical, quasi-exponential, EM wave packet. This hybrid photon accommodates both quantum and classical optics. The quantum formalism has demonstrated staggering successes in modeling the micro world of atoms. The Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral and Maxwell’s wave equation are also enjoying continued successes since early 1800’s. In this paper, using the model of hybrid photon, we underscore that the photoelectron counting statistics should vary depending upon the relative phases, spacing and amplitudes of the superposed wave packets (hybrid photons) as they simultaneously arrive and stimulate the quantum mechanical dipole complexes on the surface of the photo detectors.

DOI
10.1117/12.2533994

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We present observational and causality arguments to underscore that a better model for light is a “hybrid photon” wave packet. At the moment of quantum transitions, the electromagnetic energy is embedded in the transient quantum, hν. But, it immediately evolves into a diffractively spreading classical, quasi-exponential, EM wave packet. This hybrid photon accommodates both quantum and classical optics. The quantum formalism has demonstrated staggering successes in modeling the micro world of atoms. The Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral and Maxwell’s wave equation are also enjoying continued successes since early 1800’s. In this paper, using the model of hybrid photon, we underscore that the photoelectron counting statistics should vary depending upon the relative phases, spacing and amplitudes of the superposed wave packets (hybrid photons) as they simultaneously arrive and stimulate the quantum mechanical dipole complexes on the surface of the photo detectors.
We are developing a semi-classical model to explain the physical processes behind the origin of the statistical variations in the photoelectron current pulses that we register for different kinds of light. They are: super-Poissonian thermal light, Poissonian laser light and sub-Poissonian nonlinearly generated light. Einstein’s photoelectron equation is an energy balancing equation. It does not incorporate the E-vector stimulation process before the quantum mechanically bound electrons can be released, which constitutes a key objective of physics. To introduce physics, we postulate that the photons are hybrid entities. They are discrete packets of energy hνmn at the moment of emission. Then they immediately evolve into spatially spreading diffractive wave packets to accommodate Huygens-Fresnel principle. HF principle has been behind the sustained progress in classical optics and photonics engineering. Thus a spatially spread out single wave-packet cannot any more deliver the necessary quantum cupful of energy hνmn to Angstrom-size detecting atoms. We need simultaneous stimulation of the same quantum entity by multiple wave packets. This model of physical interaction process naturally brings into play the significance of the degree of mutual coherence between different photon wave packets, along with their time varying amplitudes that are simultaneously stimulating the detecting quantum entities during any time-interval selected for the detection system. The superposition effects on the detector due to these phase and amplitude fluctuations are the physics-reasons behind the generation of different statistical variations in the photoelectron counts due to different kinds of sources even though the original photons are released randomly by all quantum sources.
In the domain of light emissions, quantum mechanics has been an immensely successful guiding tool for us. In the propagation of light and optical instrument design, Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral (HFDI) (or its advanced versions) and Maxwell’s wave equation are continuing to be the essential guiding tools for optical scientists and engineers. In fact, most branches of optical science and engineering, like optical instrument design, image processing, Fourier optics, Holography, etc., cannot exist without using the foundational postulates behind the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral. Further, the field of structured light is also growing where phases and the state of polarizations are manipulated usually with suitable classical macro-devices to create wave fronts that restructured through light-matter interactions through these devices. Mathematical modeling of generating such complex wave fronts generally follows classical concepts and classical macro tools of physical optics. Some of these complex light beams can impart mechanical angular momentum and spin-like properties to material particles inserted inside these structured beams because of their electromagnetic dipolar properties and/or structural anisotropy. Does that mean these newly structured beams have acquired new quantum properties without being generated through quantum devices and quantum transitions? In this chapter, we bridge the classical and quantum formalism by defining a hybrid photon (HP). HP is a quantum of energy, hν, at the initial moment of emission. It then immediately evolves into a classical time-finite wave packet, still transporting the original energy, hν, with a classical carrier frequency ν (oscillation of the E-vector). This chapter will raise enquiring questions whether all these observed “quantum-like” behaviors are manifestations of the joint properties of interacting material particles with classical EM waves or are causal implications of the existence of propagation of “indivisible light quanta” with exotic properties like spin, angular momentum, etc.
Einstein’s 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect successfully modeled the published data while explicitly defining light as “indivisible light quanta”. One of the key successes of Quantum Mechanics (QM) of 1925-26, is the release of discrete packet of energy hv during any quantum level transitions in atoms and molecules. These two modern successes have overturned the mathematical and experimental knowledge developed over several centuries behind the optical science and engineering, without successfully bridging the knowledge gap epitomized by the still unresolved “wave-particle-duality” (WPD). Note that, optical science and engineering fields are still thriving using Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral (HF-DI) of 1817 and Maxwell’s wave equations of 1876, without any controversy. This chapter resolves this dichotomy by eliminating the need for WPD. We provide a model for the atomic emission as a discrete packet of energy hv, as required by QM, but which evolves and propagates out as a Maxwellian classical exponential wave packet, while diffractively spreading out obeying the HF-DI. The continuing need to accept the magical WPD arises because we have not been systematically and explicitly exploring the two-step physical processes which take place during light-detector interaction before the photoelectric data is generated by our apparatus. The two steps are: (i) Linear amplitude-amplitude stimulation induced on the detecting dipoles by the light wave vector; (ii) which is then followed by the quadratic energy absorption step by the detector. If the detector is an LCR oscillator (for radio waves), or an old fashioned Bolometer (for higher frequencies), we would not observe any quantumness in the data. But, when we use a modern quantum photodetector using higher frequency EM waves, we can count highly amplified current pulses of electrons, generated out of each one of the released electron, bound quantum mechanically inside the detector.
As low light detection technologies are advancing, novel experiments like single molecule spectroscopy, quantum computation, quantum encryption are proliferating. Quantum mechanical detectors can produce only discrete "clicks" at different rates based on the propagating field energy through them, irrespective of whether the photons are divisible or indivisible packets of energy. This is because electrons are quantized elementary particles and they are always bound in quantized energy levels in different quantum systems. Highly successful quantum formalism is not capable of providing the microscopic picture of the processes undergoing during QM interactions; that is left to human imaginations allowing for sustained controversies and mis-interpretations. This paper underscores the paradoxes that arise with the assumption that photons are indivisible elementary particles based on the obvious but generally ignored fact that EM fields do not operate on (interfere with) each other. Then we propose that atomic or molecular emissions emerge and propagate out as space and time finite classical wave packets. We also suggest experiments to validate that the amplitude of a photon wave packet can be split and combined by classical optical components using the specific example of an N-slit grating.
This chapter attempts to establish that a classical wave packet, using a specific shape in time and space, can bring the conceptual continuity between the divergent quantum-photon and classical-photon wave packet, while maintaining logical congruence between observed facts without asking nature to be non-causal, albeit statistical. It proposes a structure of the photon as a superexponential pulse that propagates by diffractively spreading, modeled precisely by the Huygens–resnel integral. Isaac Newton and Huygens gave birth to the concept of wave–corpuscular or modern wave–particle duality. The spell of wave–particle duality reemerged exactly a century after Young’s experiment, with the revolutionary success of Max Planck. While modeling the “thermalized” spontaneously emitted radiation inside a blackbody, S. N. Bose in 1924 was the first to recognize the need for a completely new statistical methodology of counting the states of photons if they are really indivisible quanta.