Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Is photon a wave packet ?



At 09:29 AM 8/20/02, you wrote:
Hello friends,

I have two questions.
One, if a single photon has the property of wave?
Two, if a single photon is a wave packet? i.e. if a single photon has
a width of frequency, but not monochromatic?
--
Best regards,
Qiang


People find it helpful to use a wave model and a particle model
for light emissions, depending on the circumstances.
The wave model is helpful in predicting diffraction and interference
properties which persist when experiments are run which are expected
to provide a single photon in flight at a time.

Of course, the same effects may be demonstrated to show the wave
properties of material particles too, as de Broglie noted.

One way to think about the finite line width of a single photon is to
consider the Fourier transform of any wave of finite length: the shorter
it is, the less monochromatic.



Brian Whatcott
Altus OK Eureka!