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Register a new userDynamics of zero-point energy and two-slit phenomena for photons
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Added by
Massimo Blasone Prof
Publication date
2018
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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An earlier forward and backward in time formalism developed by us to discuss non-relativistic electron diffraction is generalized to the relativistic case and here applied to photons. We show how naturally the zero-point energy emerges in the Planck black-body spectrum once symmetric in time motion - inherent in the Maxwell equations - is invoked for photons. Then, a detailed study is made of two-slit experiments for photons and some novel phenomena, amenable to experiments, are proposed, that arise due to the spin of the photon.
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The validity of the superposition principle and of Borns rule are well-accepted tenants of quantum mechanics. Surprisingly, it has recently been predicted that the intensity pattern formed in a three-slit experiment is seemingly in contradiction with the predictions of the most conventional form of the superposition principle when exotic looped trajectories are taken into account. However, the probability of observing such paths is typically very small and thus rendering them extremely difficult to measure. In this work, we confirm the validity of Borns rule and present the first experimental observation of these exotic trajectories as additional paths for the light by directly measuring their contribution to the formation of optical interference fringes. We accomplish this by enhancing the electromagnetic near-fields in the vicinity of the slits through the excitation of surface plasmons. This process effectively increases the probability of occurrence of these exotic trajectories, demonstrating that they are related to the near-field component of the photons wavefunction.
A huge discrepancy between the zero-point energy calculated from quantum theory and the observed quantity in the Universe has been one of the most illusive problems in physics. In order to examine the measurability of zero-point energy, we construct reference frames in a given measurement using observables. Careful and explicit construction of the reference frames surprisingly reveals that not only is the harmonic oscillator fluctuating at the ground level, but so is the reference frame when the measurement is realized. The argument is then extended to examine the measurability of vacuum energy for a quantized electromagnetic field, and it is shown that while zero-point energy calculated from quantum theory diverges to infinity, it is not measurable.
Zero-point energy is generally known to be unphysical. Casimir effect, however, is often presented as a counterexample, giving rise to a conceptual confusion. To resolve the confusion we study foundational aspects of Casimir effect at a qualitative level, but also at a quantitative level within a simple toy model with only 3 degrees of freedom. In particular, we point out that Casimir vacuum is not a state without photons, and not a ground state for a Hamiltonian that can describe Casimir force. Instead, Casimir vacuum can be related to the photon vacuum by a non-trivial Bogoliubov transformation, and it is a ground state only for an effective Hamiltonian describing Casimir plates at a fixed distance. At the fundamental microscopic level, Casimir force is best viewed as a manifestation of van der Waals forces.
A quantum field theory has finite zero-point energy if the sum over all boson modes $b$ of the $n$th power of the boson mass $ m_b^n $ equals the sum over all fermion modes $f$ of the $n$th power of the fermion mass $ m_f^n $ for $n= 0$, 2, and 4. The zero-point energy of a theory that satisfies these three conditions with otherwise random masses is huge compared to the density of dark energy. But if in addition to satisfying these conditions, the sum of $m_b^4 log m_b/mu$ over all boson modes $b$ equals the sum of $ m_f^4 log m_f/mu $ over all fermion modes $f$, then the zero-point energy of the theory is zero. The value of the mass parameter $mu$ is irrelevant in view of the third condition ($n=4$). The particles of the standard model do not remotely obey any of these four conditions. But an inclusive theory that describes the particles of the standard model, the particles of dark matter, and all particles that have not yet been detected might satisfy all four conditions if pseudomasses are associated with the mean values in the vacuum of the divergences of the interactions of the inclusive model. Dark energy then would be the finite potential energy of the inclusive theory.
In classical optics, Youngs double-slit experiment with colored coherent light gives rise to individual interference fringes for each light frequency, referring to single-photon interference. However, two-photon double-slit interference has been widely studied only for wavelength-degenerate biphoton, known as subwavelength quantum lithography. In this work, we report double-slit interference experiments with two-color biphoton. Different from the degenerate case, the experimental results depend on the measurement methods. From a two-axis coincidence measurement pattern we can extract complete interference information about two colors. The conceptual model provides an intuitional picture of the in-phase and out-of-phase photon correlations and a complete quantum understanding about the which-path information of two colored photons.
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