Wave Functionals for the Photon Field

A. M. Zheltikov

The fabric of the nonlinear quantum field behind optical solitons suggests the many-particle structure of the photon wave function in optical solitons. This wave function derives from the bound states of the original quantum field and is found as the ground-state eigenfunction of a many-body Hamiltonian with a delta-function interaction potential. Drawing on the properties of such a many-particle photon wave function, we show how classical solitons with their signature hyperbolic secant field intensity profiles emerge from quantum nonlinear fields in the limit of very large photon numbers.

Reinhard Honegger, Alfred Rieckers

Iwo Białynicki‐Birula

Zhiyong Wang, Cai-Dong Xiong, Ole Keller

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 amplitudes as well as particle-number density amplitudes, etc. Applying electromagnetic field intensities we construct a photon wave function, it corresponds to the (1,0)+(0,1) spinor representation of the electromagnetic field, and can be interpreted as the energy-density amplitude of photons outside a source. In terms of photon wave functions we develop photon wave mechanics, which provides us with a new quantum-mechanical description for photons outside a source.

Andrey P. Kanavin, Oleg N Krokhin

Based on the model of a photon as a 'radiation oscillator' of a field moving in space with the speed of light and having a zero rest mass, we have constructed a wave function that describes the photon states of the electromagnetic field. It has been suggested that the entire space where the field is present splits into separate regions of the order of the radiation wavelength, within which the field is coherent and the total field energy is equal to the photon energy.

Ashok Muthukrishnan, Marlan O. Scully, M Zubairy