Occupation Numbers Of Phonons/Photons

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According to Mahan, phonons or photons doesn't have occupation number. Is this true?http://i.tinyuploads.com/MBwW0j.jpg
 
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there are states with definite photons number (Fock states)
and there are states (e.g coherent states) which are not eigenvectors of the " occupation number" hermitian operator.
 
pirate phy said:
According to Mahan, phonons or photons doesn't have occupation number. Is this true?http://i.tinyuploads.com/MBwW0j.jpg

The text is not saying that. It says that the particular states mentioned (excitations) are
superpositions of states with a different but definite number of photons.
 

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