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Re: Is photon a wave packet ?



Qiang Lu wrote:

One, if a single photon has the property of wave?

Please ask a more specific question.
It's hard to explain a new notion (photon) in terms
of an old notion (wave) if people don't have a clear
understanding of what the old notion means. And
most people don't know what "wave" means in this context.
The laws of physics don't recognize "waves" as
distinct from "particles", so it may not be worth
asking this question at all.

-- If you have a specific experiment in mind, ask about
the experiment.
-- If this is a narrow question about terminology, as
opposed to physics, please provide much more detailed
context.

Two, if a single photon is a wave packet? i.e. if a single photon has
a width of frequency, but not monochromatic?

Monochromatic denotes single-frequency.
If it's monochromatic, it has not width in frequency,
by definition.

Most experts define photon number to be the occupation
number of a given mode of the field. This implies that
photons are monochromatic, which implies that they are
not packets.

And conversely, it is very common to have a wave packet
that is not a photon; it might contain billions of
photons.