Photon containment

[pulkit]

there's not that many 14 year olds' date=' although maybe relatively it seems many, probably also younger people are more often on the site, grown ups may not always give away their age and go onto threads labelled 'whats you age?'

 

and youdadonapogos and anti-mokey, im not 14![/quote']

 

 

Small technicality I think, not 14 but 15.......

omg !! that makes all the difference !!

 

 

is it possible for a single electron to release two or more photons when switching from higher to lower engergy state?

 

Only when it has a transition state in between which it shall attain for a brief but finite period of time. Simultaneous emission is not possible.

[5614]

to me there is a difference between 14 and 15!

 

if simulataneous emission is not possible, then the photons would not be entagled, but swansont said D to S transition would result in two photons emitted at the same time then they would be entagled.

[pulkit]

I don't think its possible without a finite time delay

Hence it can't be simultaneous in time.

[swansont]

I don't think its possible without a finite time delay

Hence it can't be simultaneous in time.

 

The Hydrogen 2S to 1S transition occurs, which has zero change in angular momentum, the other possibility that prohibits a single photon transition. The lifetime is 0.12 seconds. There is no real intermediate state.

[5614]

and would these be entagled? pressumably so?

[pulkit]

The Hydrogen 2S to 1S transition occurs, which has zero change in angular momentum, the other possibility that prohibits a single photon transition. The lifetime is 0.12 seconds. There is no real intermediate state.

 

I was under the belief that 2s to 1s did not take place, only possibility was 2p to 1s.

If does happen then I must agree that there have to be 2 photons involved.

[Messenger]

so i stumbled across this site and this thread on accident while i was researching about Lasers lol, this looks like a great community

 

ok, so on to the original question. I had a similar thought, that it would be interesting to somehow contain a photon/photons and i came up with several ideas, 100% reflective mirrors and the fibre optic loop were among them among them but not practical as you all pointed out. then i thought of a "Lazing Substance". you might be able to use one of those to at least contain the photons energy in a realistic way. i may be wrong, but i believe a Lazing substance's electrons will absorb photons, increase in their orbit, then drop back down and release the photon. but at the same time if an electron that is already in a high orbit absorbs an electron it will emit both. so if you ad a constant light source and you cover most of the substance in some sort of mirror you could gather enough photons in the Lazing Substance that the electrons are almost all in an elevated orbit and you could contain light. actually some lazer pointers work on the same principle. if you close the hole that the beam comes out of with a mirrored surface you would basically be containing the light.

 

Another interesting idea i thought of was using prisms and trapping it inside a prism. as you may or not know, when light goes from a high to a low index of refraction it will refract and "Bend" slightly. at the same time if the angle is correct it will reflect off of the boundry if the angle is correct and you will have total internal reflection. if you take these two ideas and put them together you could trap light in a glass prism. if you take something with a high index of refraction, such as Cubic zirconia, and you shine a light through it into something of a lower index of refraction, like glass, then you can create a critical angle in the glass. the only way the critical angle works is if light goes from a high to a low index of refraction so it would be vital that there is no space between the Cubic zirconia and glass. Now, once you have the critical angle you might be able to have the light enter another shape made of glass with nothing between it and the original and you would effectively have a light source "Originating" inside the glass.

This was the tricky part that had me stumped for a long time. once you have the light inside the glass all you would need is some glass that was shaped so that the light would make only internal reflections with its edges and then your done. you would have a chunk of glass that, theoretically, you could pick up and do whatever with and there would be light whipping around inside it indefinitely. good luck trying to get it out though lol. i guess you could cut it or something?

 

the only flaw i cant counter in this experiment is that as light travels a distance it loses amplitude and i would imagine that it would eventualy have an amplitude of zero, in which case its gone? i think? im not sure if that would violate the law o conservation of energy or if it doesn't happen in a vacuum but im sure its an issue.

 

anyway, both of these two things occurred to me in the span on about 30 hours and I'm 17 if anyone cares.

Id love to hear from you guys, you seem to be exceptionally bright and i need a second or third opinion of these two things, so have at it

[swansont]

Another interesting idea i thought of was using prisms and trapping it inside a prism. as you may or not know, when light goes from a high to a low index of refraction it will refract and "Bend" slightly. at the same time if the angle is correct it will reflect off of the boundry if the angle is correct and you will have total internal reflection. if you take these two ideas and put them together you could trap light in a glass prism. if you take something with a high index of refraction, such as Cubic zirconia, and you shine a light through it into something of a lower index of refraction, like glass, then you can create a critical angle in the glass. the only way the critical angle works is if light goes from a high to a low index of refraction so it would be vital that there is no space between the Cubic zirconia and glass. Now, once you have the critical angle you might be able to have the light enter another shape made of glass with nothing between it and the original and you would effectively have a light source "Originating" inside the glass.

This was the tricky part that had me stumped for a long time. once you have the light inside the glass all you would need is some glass that was shaped so that the light would make only internal reflections with its edges and then your done. you would have a chunk of glass that, theoretically, you could pick up and do whatever with and there would be light whipping around inside it indefinitely. good luck trying to get it out though lol. i guess you could cut it or something?

 

This is the same concept as in optical fiber. You have to be able to couple the light into it, and you have similar issues as with fiber — even if the attenuation is small it's still not zero, and there are chances of the light coupling out.

[lemur]

you would have a chunk of glass that, theoretically, you could pick up and do whatever with and there would be light whipping around inside it indefinitely. good luck trying to get it out though lol. i guess you could cut it or something?

Wouldn't the glass gradually absorb the photons and dissipate them as heat? I find it hard to imagine that anything could be a perfect conductor of photons except vacuum.

 

edit: e.g. when you put two mirrors face-to-face, you don't see an infinite "tunnel" of mirrors but rather one that darkens and eventually disappears in the distance, correct?

Edited March 23, 2011 by lemur

[Messenger]

yeah, the prism thing was the lesser of the two ideas lol.

it did occur to me today that light attenuates (Is that the correct word for it? im not sure, its not one im super familiar with.) the farther it travels regardless of the medium. even in a vacuum that happens, which definatly makes things harder.

 

I thought the other one might be better though, but i guess the light would still fade after some amount of time. i clearly dont know as much as you guys and im not even sure there is a difference between a substance "Lasing" and light going through a prism. they sound different but then again i dont have a phd in physics so i could be totaly wrong.