If superposed light beams do not re-distribute each others energy in the absence of detectors (material dipoles), can an indivisible single photon interfere by/with itself?

Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri

doi:10.1117/12.620178

4 August 2005 If superposed light beams do not re-distribute each others energy in the absence of detectors (material dipoles), can an indivisible single photon interfere by/with itself?

Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5866, The Nature of Light: What Is a Photon?; (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.620178
Event: Optics and Photonics 2005, 2005, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The intention of this paper is to underscore that to understand fundamentally new properties of light beams, we must first find the limits of semi classical model to explain optical interference phenomena. We claim that we have not yet reached that limit. Careful analysis of the processes behind detecting fringes indicate that the effect of superposition of multiple optical beams can become manifest only through the mediation of the detecting dipoles. Since the detectors are quantum mechanical, (i) the observed effects are different for different detectors for the same superposed light beams, and further, (ii) they are only capable of registering discrete number of "clicks", whose rate will vary with the incident intensity. A reduced rate of "clicks" at very low intensity does not prove that light consists of indivisible packets of energy. We have also experimentally demonstrated that (i) neither Fourier synthesis, nor, (ii) Fourier decomposition actually model the behavior of EM fields under all possible circumstances. Superposed light beams of different frequencies do not synthesize a new average optical frequency. A pure amplitude modulated pulse does not contain any of the mathematical, Fourier analyzed frequencies. The QED definition of photon being a Fourier mode in the vacuum, it necessarily becomes non-local. Since we have demonstrated that the Fourier theorem has various limitations in classical physics, its indiscriminate use in quantum mechanics should also be critically reviewed.

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Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri "If superposed light beams do not re-distribute each others energy in the absence of detectors (material dipoles), can an indivisible single photon interfere by/with itself?", Proc. SPIE 5866, The Nature of Light: What Is a Photon?, (4 August 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.620178

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