What is the size and shape of single optical photon?

[swansont]

1 hour ago, martillo said:

Heated filaments have been used as source of particles, photons or electrons, and the heating was attenuated until single events are observed in the experiments but this does not guarantee that a unique atom of the filament has emitted a particle. It is possible that multiple atoms of the filaments emit single particles each but in total many particles could have been emitted quite at the same time producing at the end a group of particles travelling together.

Which would have to happen on each detection. With none if these photons diffracting into different orders and only one of the photons being detected. Thousands of times.

[martillo]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Which would have to happen on each detection. With none if these photons diffracting into different orders and only one of the photons being detected. Thousands of times.

Yes, some times they diffract producing the observed diffraction patterns. For instance in a double slit experiment if two photons surge in phase, one from each slit, they will interfere at the detector depending in the phase they meet just following the Huygens principle. This perfectly explain the wave-like behavior of photons' particles. What remains is to show how particles exhibit phase. That, I agree, demands a structure for the particles which is the main question asked in this thread, I mean, which would be the shape and size of a photon...

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by martillo

[swansont]

Shape and size are not phase, and speculation is not an appropriate response

[martillo]

28 minutes ago, swansont said:

Shape and size are not phase, and speculation is not an appropriate response

For instance, if photons could be modeled as "wave-packets", as Duda Jarek has suggested as a possible one, they would exhibit a periodicity and would have phase. But it demands some "E/M structure" for them which unavoidably present shape and size. They could not be modeled as a "point-like" particle or am I wrong in this?

Edited May 9, 2021 by martillo