Re: Is photon a wave packet ?

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Tue, 14 May 2002, Arnulfo Castellanos Moreno wrote:
> They want to get a classical model of the photon by solving the wave
> equation in
> such way that it is satisfied by a wave packet represented with an integral
> where the kernel is the
> solution to a Helmholtz equation.
>
> You can disagree about that points of view, but they exist.

Does the above apply to all photons?  I thought the original question
carried some hidden assumption:

  Are (all) photons (actually) wave packets (rather than pointlike
  particles)?

If an excited atom emits a single photon, isn't that photon associated
with a spherical wavetrain of dipole EM radiation?   If a photon is
associated with a "packet", then that "packet" can take the form of an
expanding sphere of immense size, no?  After each second of time passes,
the sphere radius grows by another 3e+8 meters.

Perhaps we're dealing with a physics misconception here.  In the past I've
seen the authors of non-physics books state claim photons are not
pointlike, but instead are extended wave-packets.  I imagine that they're
uncomfortable with the usual interpretations of QM.  (How then can they
explain how a tiny ammonia molecule is able to completely absorb a
relatively enormous "wave packet" of microwave radiation?)


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