- #1
kof9595995
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According to this review: http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0508202v1.pdf
A classical EM plane wavefunction is a wavefunction(in Hilbert space) of a single photon with definite momentum(c.f section 1.4) , although a naive probabilistic interpretation is not applicable. However, what I've learned in some other sources(e.g. Sakurai's Advanced QM, chap 2) is that, the classical EM field is obtained by taking the expectation value of the field operator.Then according to sakurai, the classical E or B field of a single photon state with definite momentum p is given by [tex]\langle p|\hat{E}(or\ \hat{B})|p\rangle[/tex], which is 0 in the whole space. This seems to contradict the first view, but both views make equally good sense to me by their own reasonings, so how do I reconcile them?
A classical EM plane wavefunction is a wavefunction(in Hilbert space) of a single photon with definite momentum(c.f section 1.4) , although a naive probabilistic interpretation is not applicable. However, what I've learned in some other sources(e.g. Sakurai's Advanced QM, chap 2) is that, the classical EM field is obtained by taking the expectation value of the field operator.Then according to sakurai, the classical E or B field of a single photon state with definite momentum p is given by [tex]\langle p|\hat{E}(or\ \hat{B})|p\rangle[/tex], which is 0 in the whole space. This seems to contradict the first view, but both views make equally good sense to me by their own reasonings, so how do I reconcile them?