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arXiv:physics/0112048

The zero point field in low light level experiments

Jacques Moret‐Bailly

Published Dec 17, 2001• 0 citations
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Abstract

The existence of the zero point electromagnetic field in the dark is a trivial property of classical electromagnetism. Splitting the total, genuine electromagnetic field into the sum of a conventional field and a zero point field is physically meaningless. If a receiver attenuates the genuine field down to a zero conventional field, it remains a zero point field having the coherence and the phase of the conventional field, and vice-versa for the amplification of the zero point field by a source. Nonlinear optical effects must be written using the genuine field, so that at low light levels they become linear in relation to the conventional field. The result of the interpretation of all observations, even at low light levels, is exactly the same in quantum electrodynamics and in the semi-classical theory. The zero point field is stochastic only far from the sources and the receivers; elsewhere, it is shaped by matter, it may be studied through fields visible before an absorption or after an amplification. Two examples are given : the computation of fourth order interferences and the use of the impulsive stimulated Raman scattering with ordinary incoherent light in astrophysics.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.physics/0112048

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The existence of the zero point electromagnetic field in the dark is a trivial property of classical electromagnetism. Splitting the total, genuine electromagnetic field into the sum of a conventional field and a zero point field is physically meaningless. If a receiver attenuates the genuine field down to a zero conventional field, it remains a zero point field having the coherence and the phase of the conventional field, and vice-versa for the amplification of the zero point field by a source. Nonlinear optical effects must be written using the genuine field, so that at low light levels they become linear in relation to the conventional field. The result of the interpretation of all observations, even at low light levels, is exactly the same in quantum electrodynamics and in the semi-classical theory. The zero point field is stochastic only far from the sources and the receivers; elsewhere, it is shaped by matter, it may be studied through fields visible before an absorption or after an amplification. Two examples are given : the computation of fourth order interferences and the use of the impulsive stimulated Raman scattering with ordinary incoherent light in astrophysics.
In the classical theory, an electromagnetic field obeying Maxwell's equations cannot be absorbed quickly by matter, so that it remains a zero point field. Splitting the total, genuine electromagnetic field into the sum of a conventional field and a zero point field is physically meaningless until a receiver attenuates the genuine field down to the zero point field, or studying the amplification of the zero point field by a source. In classical optics all optical effects must be written using the genuine field, so that at low light levels the nonlinear effects become linear in relation to the conventional field. The result of the interpretation of all observations, even at low light levels, is exactly the same in quantum electrodynamics and in the semi- classical theory. The zero point field is stochastic only far from the sources and the receivers; elsewhere, it is shaped by matter, it may be studied through fields visible before an absorption or after an amplification. A classical study of the reduction of the wave packet extends the domain of equivalence of the classical and quantum zero point field; using both interpretations of this field makes the results more reliable, because the traps are different.
The zero point field is an ordinary field existing in the dark, which cannot be separated from the total electromagnetic field in an excited mode. The total field is in equilibrium with matter that it polarizes temporarily and reversibly. This polarisation is exceptionally large enough to allow the energy of an atom reach and cross a pass between two minimums of potential, stimulating an emission or an absorption. A paradox of quantum electrodynamics is explained classically: The nearly plane wave generally used in stimulated emission experiments must be decomposed into an efficient spherical wave and a scattered wave, so that the plane wave is two times less efficient than the zero point component of the spherical mode. The classical electromagnetism does not need the quantum postulate "reduction of the wave packet" and it has no paradox such as EPR. De Broglie's waves may be the linear part of solitons of a field which may be a high frequency electromagnetic field. These solitons may lead to a physical interpretation of the superstrings theory.
As a light beam is produced by an amplification of modes of the zero point field in its source, this field cannot be distinguished; consequently a nonlinear optical effect is a function of the total field. However, we generally prefer to use a conventional field which excludes the zero point field; for a low conventional field, the total field may be developed to the first order, so that the effect appears linear. This nearly trivial remark allows a correct computation of the signal of a photocell used for photon counting and shows that the "impulsive stimulated Raman scattering" (ISRS), a nonlinear, without threshold effect, which shifts the frequencies, becomes linear at low light levels, so that the shifted spectra are not distorted.
The usual computation of the spontaneous emission uses a mixture of classical and quantum postulates. A purely classical computation shows that a source of electromagnetic field absorbs light in the eigenmode it is able to emit. Thus in an excitation by an other mode, the component of this mode on the eigenmode is absorbed, while the remainder is scattered. This loss of energy does not apply to the zero point field which has its regular energy in the eigenmode, so that the zero point field seems more effective than the other fields for the stimulation of light emission.
Introduction We will now study the properties of fluctuating electromagnetic fields, paying attention mainly to the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It seems hardly necessary to stress that every electromagnetic field found in nature has some fluctuations associated with it. Even though these fluctuations are, as a rule, much too rapid to be observed directly, one can deduce their existence from suitable experiments that provide information about correlations between the fluctuations at two or more space-time points. The simplest manifestations of correlations in optical fields are the well-known interference effects that arise when two light beams that originate from the same source are superposed. With the availability of modern light detectors and electronic circuitry of very short resolving time, other types of correlations in optical fields began to be studied in more recent times. These investigations, as well as the development of lasers and other novel types of light sources, led to a systematic classification of optical correlation phenomena and the complete statistical description of optical fields. The area of optics concerned with such questions is now generally known as optical coherence theory . The first investigations of coherence phenomena are due to Verdet (1865, 1869) and von Laue (1907a, b). Some early investigations of Stokes (1852) and Michelson (1890, 1891a, b, c, 1892, 1920) although not explicitly mentioning coherence – because this concept is of a much later origin – have also contributed to the clarification and development of this subject.
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).