Light waves and photons

[Andeh]

<I apologize if this seems like a disjointed collection of thoughts. That's just how my brain works.>

 

I was thinking about quantum entanglement, and came to the idea that entangled particles share the same wavefunction. I've read nothing that validates this, but it seems like common sense to me: since a wavefunction is the superposition of states, and if two particles are made to become entangled they would share the same possible states...resulting in two wavefunctions that line up perfectly when overlapped, and can therefor be treated as one wavefunction. I feel like someone should have had this idea before, so is there anything that disproves this?

 

Moving on, I was also considering a seemingly unrelated topic: of what determines the number of photons that represent a light wave.

That thought led to a really far fetched idea: that a light wave is the wavefunction of a collection of entangled photons (going back to the first paragraph on entanglement, since the entangled particles would make up one wave: the light wave that we see), since that eliminates the need for the question posed above (the number of photons are, simply, the number of photons that are entangled). This suggests that the particle state is the "defualt state" of things, and that the wavefunction arises from that somehow...but I dismissed that idea, since at least to my knowledge neither the wave-state nor the particle-state is the defualt. So my final question is, that if a light wave is not a collection of entangled photons, what determines that number of photons that represent it?

 

 

[questionposter]

<I apologize if this seems like a disjointed collection of thoughts. That's just how my brain works.>

 

I was thinking about quantum entanglement, and came to the idea that entangled particles share the same wavefunction. I've read nothing that validates this, but it seems like common sense to me: since a wavefunction is the superposition of states, and if two particles are made to become entangled they would share the same possible states...resulting in two wavefunctions that line up perfectly when overlapped, and can therefor be treated as one wavefunction. I feel like someone should have had this idea before, so is there anything that disproves this?

 

This is actually describing how you treat non-entangled particles within the same system, such as if you have two electrons in the same energy level, their wave-functions overlap and you treat them as a single a-symmetric wave function

 

Moving on, I was also considering a seemingly unrelated topic: of what determines the number of photons that represent a light wave.

That thought led to a really far fetched idea: that a light wave is the wavefunction of a collection of entangled photons (going back to the first paragraph on entanglement, since the entangled particles would make up one wave: the light wave that we see), since that eliminates the need for the question posed above (the number of photons are, simply, the number of photons that are entangled). This suggests that the particle state is the "defualt state" of things, and that the wavefunction arises from that somehow...but I dismissed that idea, since at least to my knowledge neither the wave-state nor the particle-state is the defualt. So my final question is, that if a light wave is not a collection of entangled photons, what determines that number of photons that represent it?

 

 

 

How do you have more photons in a photon? Do you mean frequency? Amplitude? Light has those things and they vary.

Edited January 8, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

Entangled particles can be described by a single wavefunction. That's why measurement of one results in the knowledge of the state of both.

 

The wave in wave-particle duality is not identical to the wavefunction. If I have a particle with a well-defined momentum, i.e. I know it exactly, it has a wavelength of h/p, but its wavefunction is a delta function in momentum-space and a constant in position-space.

 

The number of photons in a wave is determined by the energy and frequency. E = nhv

[questionposter]

Entangled particles can be described by a single wavefunction. That's why measurement of one results in the knowledge of the state of both.

 

The wave in wave-particle duality is not identical to the wavefunction. If I have a particle with a well-defined momentum, i.e. I know it exactly, it has a wavelength of h/p, but its wavefunction is a delta function in momentum-space and a constant in position-space.

 

The number of photons in a wave is determined by the energy and frequency. E = nhv

 

If you have multiple photons in the same wave, are some more likely to be detected than others?

[swansont]

If you have multiple photons in the same wave, are some more likely to be detected than others?

 

If they are identical, I can't think of any reason they should be.

[questionposter]

If they are identical, I can't think of any reason they should be.

 

Well I mean some neutrinos are more detectable than others, and since energy in a way = mass, higher energy photons have more relative mass, so...

Edited January 8, 2012 by questionposter

[swansont]

Well I mean some neutrinos are more detectable than others, and since energy in a way = mass, higher energy photons have more relative mass, so...

 

Higher-energy photons can be detected in different ways as compared to low-energy photons. High-energy can cause pair production of the energy is above 1.02 MeV, and there is Compton scattering and ionization. Lower than ionization energy they can only cause excitation if there is a resonance, or be detected with an antenna, and detecting individual photons gets harder.