- #1
Xian
- 25
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I don't profess of a knowledge of QED, and am in fact incredibly ignorant of its formulation and nuances, however I do understand that its never been refuted and is the crown jewel of physical models. So I will take it as fact for this post.
What confuses me, is that in quantum mechanics, every particle must be described by a wavefunction which is a complete characterization of its state. So it follows that a photon has a wavefunction.
Classically, when we observe light, we are told that we measure an undulatory wave packet of some local frequency ω. When we look at the Fourier transform of the wave packet we get peaks at the frequencies ω and -ω and the rest of the constituent frequencies clump around it (due to the fact that bounded wave packets must be built from a continuum of waves).
If this is indeed what is measured, how do the photon wavefunctions combine to create such an elegant waveform?
What does a photon wave function look like?
And where do E-fields and B-fields come in for the single photon case?
What confuses me, is that in quantum mechanics, every particle must be described by a wavefunction which is a complete characterization of its state. So it follows that a photon has a wavefunction.
Classically, when we observe light, we are told that we measure an undulatory wave packet of some local frequency ω. When we look at the Fourier transform of the wave packet we get peaks at the frequencies ω and -ω and the rest of the constituent frequencies clump around it (due to the fact that bounded wave packets must be built from a continuum of waves).
If this is indeed what is measured, how do the photon wavefunctions combine to create such an elegant waveform?
What does a photon wave function look like?
And where do E-fields and B-fields come in for the single photon case?