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Nano-Passion
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If electron acts both as a wave and a particle; how does an electron emit a photon when it is a wave?
Nano-Passion said:If electron acts both as a wave and a particle; how does an electron emit a photon when it is a wave?
A. Neumaier said:A single electron does not emit photons. It only carries with it an electromagnetic field.
Emission processes are scattering events when several particles interact. They behave very much like chemical reactions. For example, absorption and emission of an electron in a hydrogen atom is a reversible reaction of the form
pe + g <==> pe^*,
(p=proton, e= electron, g=gamma=photon), where e^* is an excited state of the electron.
During the reaction, one has complicated intermediate states in a so-called Fock space, not visualizable as a particle or wave. Only the input and output of the scattering process is visualizable in this way.
JesusInACan said:Is this Fock space a complex geometry within the local space of the interacting particles, or is it a description of the interactions of the particles on an abstract, immeasurably small scale within the local space?
Electron waves refer to the wave-like behavior of electrons, which are particles that make up atoms. Similar to light waves, electrons can also exhibit properties of both particles and waves.
Electron waves are different from electromagnetic waves in several ways. Electrons are particles with mass, while electromagnetic waves are massless. Additionally, electron waves have a de Broglie wavelength, which is determined by the momentum of the electron, while electromagnetic waves have a wavelength determined by their frequency.
In quantum mechanics, the behavior of electrons is described by their wave function, which is a mathematical representation of their wave-like behavior. This allows for the prediction of the probability of finding an electron in a particular location or state.
Electrons and photons are both fundamental particles, but they have different properties. While electrons have both particle and wave-like behavior, photons only exhibit wave-like behavior. Additionally, electrons have mass and electric charge, while photons are massless and have no electric charge.
Electron waves and photons play crucial roles in various technologies. Electron waves are used in electron microscopes to produce high-resolution images, while photons are utilized in devices such as lasers, solar cells, and fiber optics for communication. They also have applications in medical imaging, such as X-rays and MRI scans.