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What equation describes the wavefunction of a single photon?

What equation describes the wavefunction of a single photon?

Grade:9

1 Answers

Komal
askIITians Faculty 747 Points
8 years ago
There is no quantum mechanics of a photon, only a quantum field theory of electromagnetic radiation. The reason is that photons are never non-relativistic and they can be freely emitted and absorbed, hence no photon number conservation.

Still, there exists a direction of research where people try to reinterpret certain quantities of electromagnetic field in terms of the photon wave function.

You can also say that the wavefunction of a photon is defined as long as the photon is not emitted or absorbed. The wavefunction of a single photons is used in single-photon interferometry, for example. In a sense, it is not much different from the electron, where the wave-function start to be problematic when electrons start to be created or annihilated

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