All Questions
39
questions
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31
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What is the relation between the Faraday effect and the Zeeman effect?
The Faraday Effect basically says that certain materials under a magnetic field have different indexes of refraction for right and circular polarized light. Linear light which is a superposition of ...
1
vote
1
answer
44
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Are temporal coherence (for classical EM waves) and quantum coherence related concepts?
For my wave optics class, I was taught that the temporal coherence of a light source is the average time interval for which the phase of that light is predictable, after which the source will undergo ...
0
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0
answers
21
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What should be minimum width of slit for interference pattern to occur in a single slit experiment? [duplicate]
When two slits produce an interference pattern, and one slit is closed, then the interference pattern disappears. Why? As one-slit interference is still possible. What should be the measurements of ...
- 1
0
votes
1
answer
336
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What's the intuition behind the Wigner function of a Fock state?
The Wigner function for a Fock state with $n>1$ has "ripples" leading away from the center. For example, the $n=4$ Fock state looks like this:
The marginals of this distribution give the ...
- 21
2
votes
1
answer
115
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Short wavelength limit in Eikonal equation
Limting the discourse of this question only for scalar waves in optics, we have
$\nabla^2 \phi - \dfrac{n^2}{c^2} \dfrac{\partial^2 \phi}{\partial t^2} =0 $.
Now, when we investigate about geometric ...
- 289
1
vote
1
answer
54
views
Catastrophic absorption by carbon dioxid in atmosphere: value of the polarizability
Introduction to the problem
I computed the absorption by carbon dioxide in earth atmosphere at $14,7$ µm wavelength (absorption band of CO2 where the earth emission is the strongest by far), taking ...
- 45
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
Photon statistics for thermal light?
I know that the variance $\Delta^2$ of the number of photons $n$ for thermal light is:
$\Delta^2 n = \bar{n} + \bar{n}^2 \hspace{2 cm} (1) $
where $\bar{n}$ is the average number of photons.
This ...
- 444
1
vote
3
answers
440
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Is the electric field the same as probability amplitude of a photon?
I am a novice in Quantum Mechanics and have seen many authors interchangeably using the two terms in the introductory textbooks. But I have never seen it written explicitly anywhere 'The probability ...
- 335
0
votes
0
answers
442
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The second-order correlation function
The second order correlation function for a single mode EM is:
$$g^{\left(2\right)}\left(\tau = 0\right)=\frac{\left\langle \hat{a}^{\dagger}\hat{a}^{\dagger}\hat{a}\hat{a}\right\rangle }{\left\langle ...
- 1,038
0
votes
1
answer
1k
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Combination of half wave plate, quarter wave plates and q-plate
I would like to understand half wave plate, quarter wave plates and q-plate. (A q-plate is an optical device which can generate light beams with orbital angular momentum of light (OAM)). Quarter-wave ...
- 1
0
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0
answers
28
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Centrosymmetry in diffraction glasses
I recently purchased quirky diffraction glasses and when looking at the sun or any source of light I noticed that there is centrosymmetry.
What is this due to, perhaps the conservation of ...
2
votes
5
answers
1k
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Is there a field of physics that attempts to understand the properties of light from a single perspective? [closed]
Hearing about the wave-particle duality of light, I can’t stop wondering whether there is a field of study that attempts to understand the properties of light from a single perspective.
Is there such ...
- 73
0
votes
0
answers
56
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Are there any videos of diffraction grading experiments one photon at a time?
I have seen the video of a double slit one photon at a time but wondering if there is a video of a Diffraction grading experiment one photon at a time.
- 4,083
-1
votes
1
answer
117
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Why do Diffraction lines in image not match the Spacing on the fringe pattern
In the attached image interference lines spreading out from the slits end up hitting the detection screen with unequal spacing. The spacing gets wider and wider the farther out it goes. On the other ...
- 4,083
1
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0
answers
24
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Intensity uncertainty, $\Delta \bar{I}(t) \approx \frac{1}{2}N \varepsilon_{0} c E_{0}^{2}$, of collisionally broadened source
According to my professor's notes, the intensity uncertainty of a collisionally broadened photon source is:
$$\Delta \bar{I}(t) \approx \frac{1}{2}N \varepsilon_{0} c E_{0}^{2}$$
with N being the ...
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