Einstein, in his later years, expressed deep dissatisfaction with the concept of ‘light quanta’, questioning whether the wave-particle duality, could be more fundamentally understood. In response to this fundamental legacy, we propose “Einsmax Theory of Light Quanta and Massless Particles”, which treats light as comprising two separable, yet interdependent components each component fulfilling separate roles in physical interaction: a light wave is responsible for carrying energy, while massless glittering particles (corpuscles) responsible only for intensity of brightness. ‘Einsmax theory’ retains all Maxwellian and quantum mechanical formalism. This theory adds an additional highlight to the amplitude of the light wave of the photon to be vested with the quantum levels as 1,2,3,4… n, acting as energy storage tanks for emission and absorption of light energy. The implications span quantum optics, photodetection and foundational interpretations of light matter interaction. We present, thought experiments and observational set ups, inspired by macroscopic imaging phenomena, such as long-distance photography in darkness (as well as ‘Camera Obscura’) to illustrate this conceptual separation. The clarity of images formed in dark regions, despite an apparent absence of visual corpuscular brightness, suggests the independent role of the wave component in transmission of the image to the camera, while the object being glittered by the corpuscular component, affirming the Truth: “The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out”.
Einstein, in his later years, expressed deep dissatisfaction with the concept of ‘light quanta’, questioning whether the wave-particle duality, could be more fundamentally understood. In response to this fundamental legacy, we propose “Einsmax Theory of Light Quanta and Massless Particles”, which treats light as comprising two separable, yet interdependent components each component fulfilling separate roles in physical interaction: a light wave is responsible for carrying energy, while massless glittering particles (corpuscles) responsible only for intensity of brightness. ‘Einsmax theory’ retains all Maxwellian and quantum mechanical formalism. This theory adds an additional highlight to the amplitude of the light wave of the photon to be vested with the quantum levels as 1,2,3,4… n, acting as energy storage tanks for emission and absorption of light energy. The implications span quantum optics, photodetection and foundational interpretations of light matter interaction. We present, thought experiments and observational set ups, inspired by macroscopic imaging phenomena, such as long-distance photography in darkness (as well as ‘Camera Obscura’) to illustrate this conceptual separation. The clarity of images formed in dark regions, despite an apparent absence of visual corpuscular brightness, suggests the independent role of the wave component in transmission of the image to the camera, while the object being glittered by the corpuscular component, affirming the Truth: “The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out”.
The following Master’s thesis is concerned with several aspects of the wave-particle duality of light. It is loosely divided in three parts. In the first part we consider historical, theoretical and experimental aspects of the duality problem. We explain how the notion of duality has developed through the last 400 years. We discuss theoretical underpinnings of the duality emodied by Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory, quantization of electromagnetic modes, Fock’s states and coherent states. We critically review several experiments which serve to demonstrate the corpuscular or undulatory behaviour of light and matter; in particular we present how the photoelectric effect and the Compton effect can be explained using the undulatory model, and we critically review Grangier, Roger and Aspect correlation experiment.\n\nIn the second part we describe two illustrative experiments on the duality of light conducted at Quantum Optics Laboratory at University of Oslo. The results of the experiment allow us to discuss how coincidence measurements can be used to exhibit the corpuscular behaviour of light, and how Mach-Zender interferometry performed at very low intensity can be used to exhibit the undulatory behaviour at\nthe (assumed) single-photon level. In addition, in the second part we review elements of theories closely associated with the experiment and the experimental setup: optical coherence, photocount and photon\nstatistics, beam splitter models and Gaussian beams. A proposition for extending the semiclassical model is given, and shortcomings of the present beam splitter models are discussed.\n\nIn the third part of the thesis we consider first Afshar’s experiment and some of the critical response that it has been met with. Then we discuss how the wave-particle duality is to be understood in the\nstandard interpretation of quantum mechanics, and how it could possibly be explained using either an alternative model for light or an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics, and what difficulties such explanations present.
Light quanta The history of the corpuscular and wave controversy in optical theory is well known. At the end of the last century physicists had no doubt as to the wave character of light, and the acceptance of the wave theory meant the rejection of the corpuscular theory. The possibility of both being correct and helpful to one another had not been much thought about and still less explored. At about this time Planck's quantum theory appeared and was soon followed in 1905 by Einstein's theory of ‘light quanta’ to explain the photo-electric effect, for which the wave theory alone had utterly failed to account. Einstein assumed that radiation exists in discrete ‘quanta’ of energy hν , where ν is the frequency; thus a quantum is a separate thing, like a corpuscle, and has a frequency associated with it, like a wave. There was a blend of the two older theories involved. This idea has been generalised by the speculations of Louis de Broglie, who pointed out the important clue given by the theory of relativity, namely, that of the identity of mass and energy, so that the conservation of mass is therefore also the conservation of energy. This suggested to him that all forms of energy (including radiation) should have an atomic structure, like matter; and that the atoms of energy are grouped round certain singular points, forming electrons, light quanta, and the like.
The photoelectric effect, the Compton effects, and now anticorrelation experiments have been claimed to prove that light consists of particles flying through a void. However the particle model is decisively falsified by the known wave qualities of electromagnetic radiation. Quantum Electrodynamics also uses spreading wave amplitudes; not flying particles. The evidence indicates that light is a wave and electrons are electromagnetic wave-structures that absorb and emit light in discrete wave-packets. These wave-quanta are emitted directionally and then spread in space in proportion to their wavelength. Their waves superposition with all other waves in space. In low intensity experiments, the waves that an electron in a photodetector absorbs come from the superpositioning of the source wave-quanta and background radiation. The importance of background radiation is evidenced by "dark counts". Treating electrons and the quanta they absorb and emit as particles when they are composed of waves is the source of all the paradoxes, unreality and confusion in Quantum Mechanics. The word "photon" should be replaced by "quantum" in the description of this particular electronic process. The conceptual model presented here explains the known phenomena without producing paradoxes and unifies quantum and classical electromagnetics.
Quantum computers, hypothesized in 1980s, use concepts of superposition and entanglement phenomena. Although theoretical propositions and associated search algorithms for accurate measurements are being generated, the development of practical quantum computers themselves are advancing very slowly requiring enormous time and investments. The underlying concepts of a quantum computer are not new to the optical domain. However, the crucial enabling concepts of Entanglement and Superposition Principle are remaining clouded under the unresolved postulates, Wave-Particle Duality (WPD), and Wave Packet Reduction (WPR), implicating incompleteness in the interpretations of the mathematical formalism behind Quantum Mechanics. The WPD debate started during late1600 between Newton and Huygens. Young’s resolution of WPD through his double-slit experiment in 1802 was effectively overturned by Einstein’s interpretation of photoelectric effect as due to “indivisible light quanta”. However, Einstein disowned his “light quanta” postulate shortly before his death in1955, even though it had earned him the Nobel Prize. We resolve WPD by synthesizing Newton’s and Maxwell’s concepts and assume atoms do emit quanta but propagate as time-finite exponential pulses. This assumption also resolves WPR for light-matter interaction with the assumption that Schrodinger’s ψ represents atom’s internal dipolar amplitude stimulations. This over-turns Born’s interpretation that ψ only represents the abstract mathematical probability amplitude, rather than the physical “internal amplitude stimulation” of the quantum entity. However, our concept of atomic pulse emission forces us to re-derive the expression for the N-slit grating-spectrometer response since the classical derivation uses CW light, which does not exist. This pulsespectrometric response function strengthens our postulate since the grating response to the exponential pulse appears to be the convolution of a Lorentzian spectrum with the classical CW response function of the grating. The Fourier Transform of an exponential function is Lorentzian and QM predicts spontaneous emission line width to be Lorentzian. Then, conceptually one can extend the grating-expression (with N=2) to get the double-slit pattern. This approach preserves the classical causality that each of the two slits, like the N-signals out of a grating, are physically real and jointly stimulate the quantum detector array at the far field to generate the “Local” cosine fringes. The detector array executes the square modulus operation on its imposed dipolar amplitude stimulation and absorbs the necessary energy to fill up their quantum cups. Hence the double-slit pattern must also be “Local”, just as the N-slit grating spectrum is generated locally at the exit spectral-plane of the spectrometer. This removes the need to believe that “single photons” mysteriously generate the double slit pattern.
The answer lies right in front of us, but we refuse to see it. Both relativity and quantum theory, the two pillars of fundamental physics, are modified in this paper to make them also explain the physical phenomena they describe. With this explanation, all current inconsistencies between the two vanish. The modifications relate to the presence of a medium, which is in fact potential energy, in three-dimensional space. This medium acts as a reference system, in accordance with Mach’s principle. The speed of light, therefore, is not absolute but relative to the medium and thus to the observer. It is also dependent on medium density. Quantum waves are real scalar waves occurring in the potential energy medium, not probabilities of particles being present. Real scalar quantum waves in three-dimensional space make up the whole of physics representing manifest energy. Particles therefore do not exist; they are local manifestations of real scalar quantum waves. As a result, the Doppler effect and wave interference play a central role in physics. Moreover, the dependence of quantum wave velocity (speed of light) on medium density provides the energy exchange mechanism that is central to physics because all physical phenomena, including observation, concern energy exchange, or interaction. The conceptual simplicity of the model of physics proposed in this paper is shown to clarify a series of paradoxes and ill-understood phenomena at the fundamental level of physics such as wave-particle duality, the twins paradox, and the double slit experiment. As to entanglement, superposition, and nonlocality, the model implies that only weak versions of these properties exist.