In quantum mechanics, light cannot be described in terms of waves and particles at the same time. However, the question about light "as it really is" implies a description that is independent from the constraints of measurement. It is rather preferable to incorporate both aspects in a causal ontological theory, especially if it simplifies explanation and improves predictions. Hence, the photon can be described as an extended longitudinal association of discrete indivisible constituents, which are held together by the effect of their own waves on each other. The same waves can then be used to interpret the force of interactions between different pulses of light, or between light and matter. The concept of wavemediated interaction between sub-photonic entities is entirely consistent with the observations of quantum mechanics. The key is to assume that elementary sources of waves never collide, and that they have constant parameters. Novel experimental implications follow from this approach. For example, the speed of propagation of changes within magnetic or electrostatic fields may not be equal to the speed of light. Also, interference fringes should be detectable beyond the volume of overlap of two non-entangled beams, but only in special experimental settings.
In quantum mechanics, light cannot be described in terms of waves and particles at the same time. However, the question about light "as it really is" implies a description that is independent from the constraints of measurement. It is rather preferable to incorporate both aspects in a causal ontological theory, especially if it simplifies explanation and improves predictions. Hence, the photon can be described as an extended longitudinal association of discrete indivisible constituents, which are held together by the effect of their own waves on each other. The same waves can then be used to interpret the force of interactions between different pulses of light, or between light and matter. The concept of wavemediated interaction between sub-photonic entities is entirely consistent with the observations of quantum mechanics. The key is to assume that elementary sources of waves never collide, and that they have constant parameters. Novel experimental implications follow from this approach. For example, the speed of propagation of changes within magnetic or electrostatic fields may not be equal to the speed of light. Also, interference fringes should be detectable beyond the volume of overlap of two non-entangled beams, but only in special experimental settings.
How can we construct a picture of the photon from the wealth of observation material available to us? The photon appears to have a split personality: it is neither a wave nor a particle but something else which, depending on the experimental situation, exhibits a wave- or a particle-like behavior. In other words, in the photon (as in material particles such as the electron) the particle–wave dualism becomes manifest. Whereas classically the wave and the particle pictures are separate, quantum mechanics accomplishes a formal synthesis through a unified mathematical treatment. Let us look first at the wave aspect familiar from classical electrodynamics, which seems to be the most natural description. It makes all the different interference phenomena understandable, such as the “interference of the photon with itself” on the one hand and the appearance of spatial and temporal intensity correlations in a thermal radiation field on the other (which are obviously brought about by superposition of elementary waves emitted independently from different atoms). It might come as a surprise (at least for those having quantum mechanical preconceptions) that the classical theory is valid down to arbitrarily small intensities: the visibility of the interference pattern does not deteriorate even for very small intensities – the zero point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field advocated by quantum mechanics do not have a disturbing effect – and is valid not only for conventional interference experiments but also for interference between independently generated light beams (in the form of laser light).
Arguments in physics regarding light are often based on either mechanistic concepts, or on a "which way" discussion where the question of "indistinguishability" is crucial. The last kind of arguing is based on the concept of an indivisible, point-like photon, a concept stemming historically from the most common explanation of the photoelectric effect. There seems, however, to be an important lack of consistency between arguing based on indivisible particle-like photons and the actual quantum formalism for calculating detailed outcomes from various experiments. Crucial parts of the actual calculations of diffraction and interference phenomena seem in fact to be very similar in the classical and the quantum descriptions, and are based either on classic electromagnetic fields, or on quantum fields. It is the interpretations that differ. It would be interesting to downgrade the concept of an indivisible particle-like photon and upgrade the importance of the quantum field description we really use in the detailed calculations. It is our impression that we by that could avoid quite a few weird conclusions we live with today. A few examples are given.
Diffraction and interference fringes are stable and reproducible objective phenomena in optical experiments. Mainstream quantum mechanics puts forward the ontological interpretation of wave particle duality. It holds that the material ontology of micro particles such as photons inherently possesses both particle and wave properties, and attributes diffraction and interference phenomena directly to the intrinsic matter wave behavior of particles. This interpretation stays at the level of observational appearance and avoids underlying ontological dynamic mechanisms. It represents a research approach that deduces the intrinsic properties of material ontology merely from external observations. Within the framework of the light ontology theory, a photon is an energy state object. Energy and motion at the speed of light form an inseparable whole and are permanently bound together and cannot be separated. In the real universe, no photon with energy that does not travel at the speed of light has ever been observed. Nor has any object moving at the speed of light without energy been detected. The two cannot exist independently from one another. A photon has no physical volume but possesses inherent fixed transverse trembling property. At the moment a photon is generated, it acquires a definite trembling angle within a 360 degree spatial plane perpendicular to its propagation direction. This transverse trembling orientation remains unchanged without physical collision interaction. When the transverse trembling of a photon can reach the slit wall, absorption and reradiation secondary scattering will occur. Massive secondary photons superpose statistically to form bright and dark diffraction and interference fringes. Slit walls are stacked by large numbers of atoms. Their spatial scale is hundreds of thousands to tens of millions times larger than the scale of photon transverse trembling. For photons, slit walls constitute huge physical barriers and can produce significant interactions with trembling photons. The wave function is only a mathematical tool for fitting experimental data. Good fitting performance of a mathematical model does not mean its corresponding physical interpretation equals objective physical reality. This paper proposes a new set of comparative decisionmaking experiments. The key innovation is to place a linear polarizer in front of the slit. Before photons contact the slit, the transverse trembling orientation of photons is pre screened. The transverse trembling direction of transmitted photons is made parallel to the orientation of vertical slit walls to suppress oscillation components perpendicular to slit walls and make it difficult for photons to hit slit walls. Polarizers with different grating line widths can be replaced to observe the influence of the grating scale of polarizers on experimental results. According to the physical mechanism of slit wall scattering, characteristic diffraction and interference fringes will be greatly attenuated and only the central direct light spot will remain. Non ideal device characteristics will bring a small amount of stray scattering background, but complete bright and dark diffraction and interference structures will not appear. According to the traditional ontological interpretation of wave particle duality, the geometric parameters of slits remain completely unchanged. Only polarization orientation screening is conducted and the intrinsic matter wave of particle ontology is not affected. Therefore diffraction and interference fringes should be fully preserved. The two theories produce mutually exclusive observable predictions. This experiment can test whether the ontological interpretation of wave particle duality holds true. This paper does not deny objective diffraction and interference phenomena, nor does it deny the practical value of wave function as an engineering calculation tool.
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.
The concept of the photon is introduced by discussion of the process of electromagnetic field quantization within a closed cavity or in an open optical system. The nature of a single-photon state is clarified by consideration of its behaviour at an optical beam splitter. The importance of linear superposition or entangled states in the distinctions between quantum-mechanical photon states and classical excitations of the electromagnetic field is emphasized. These concepts and the ideas of wave-particle duality are illustrated by discussions of the effects of single-photon inputs to Brown-Twiss and Mach-Zehnder interferometers. Both the theoretical predictions and the-confirming experimental observations are covered. The defining property of the single photon in terms of its ability to trigger one. and only one, photodetection event is discussed.
One of the most intriguing quantum phenomena of light is the wave–particle duality which is related to the inability of the classical wave and particle concepts to fully describe the behavior of quantum objects. Theoretically, the wave features of the electromagnetic field, such as interference, follow from the solution of Maxwell's equations while particle features are a consequence of the field quantization, in which the electromagnetic field is described to consist of discrete energy packets, photons. Due to the wave–particle duality, for example, simultaneous description of optical absorption, emission, and interference of propagating fields has conventionally not been considered feasible using local optical models but has required using Maxwell's equations with stochastic source terms accounting for the wave–particle duality. Also the description of the momentum of light in a medium has been problematic. In the research described in this thesis, the quantized fluctuational electrodynamics (QFED) model is derived based on combining the electromagnetic Green's functions to the field quantization to describe the position dependence of the photon number and local thermal balance in general non-equilibrium conditions, and to separate the electromagnetic field into parts propagating in different directions in resonant structures, which has conventionally been problematic due to interference effects. The QFED method is shown to resolve the previously found anomalies in the canonical commutation relations of photon ladder operators. The QFED method is also used to derive quantum optical field–matter interaction parameters fully capturing the interference, emission, damping, and scattering of propagating photons in stratified media leading to an interference-exact radiative transfer equation (RTE) model. Therefore, the derived interaction parameters solve the problem of simultaneously describing interference and losses in the widely used RTE framework. The particle aspects of light are also studied by directly applying the conservation laws of nature and the special theory of relativity to show that light propagating in a medium must be described as mass-polariton (MP) quasiparticles, covariant coupled states of the field and matter. These quasiparticles are shown to have momentum of the Minkowski form and a nonzero mass that is carried by a mass density wave associated with light. The field–matter interaction related to the MP quasiparticles also leads to the dissipation of photon energy. These particle model results are also derived using a wave-based optoelastic continuum dynamics (OCD) approach following from the electrodynamics of continuous media and the continuum mechanics. The obtained results verify the full agreement between the wave and particle models when they are correctly applied. The key finding that a light pulse propagating in a medium is inevitably associated with an experimentally measurable mass implies a fundamental change in the prevailing perceptions of light.