This book is about Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light. First, it is a fully relativistic theory without having a non-relativistic limit. There arise many difficulties in quantising the electromagnetic field and in the physical interpretation of the wavefunction of its quanta. Further, the first quantisation of the Maxwell equations similar to quantisation of classical mechanics by the Schrodinger method, has not been discussed in most books on quantum mechanics. Second, the Maxwell field is the simplest gauge field possessing symmetry with respect to Poincare group of transformations in addition to scale, duality and special conformal transformations whose local versions give rise to new interaction of photons through new gauge fields. One of these gauge fields couples to the spin density of the photon and other particles and can bind fermion-antifermion pairs to give transverse photons. Another interesting aspect of the electromagnetic field is its coherence properties and their interpretation in terms of quantised theory.

The Photon (Contemporary Fundamental Physics)

Science & Math

Pradhan, Trilochan

Physics

Nova Science Pub Inc

<p>Newton thought of light rays to be streams of tiny particles called corpuscles which cause sensation of light upon striking the retina of our eyes. But how can such corpuscles coming from two different sources interfere to give dark and bright fringes unless they kill each other at the site of dark fringe? This probably led Thomas Young to say that light is some kind of wave motion. But what kind? The answer to such a question came from Maxwell who showed that it is electromagnetic wave motion. However, his electromagnetic theory failed to explain black-body spectrum and photoelectric effect. It was through the works of Planck, Einstein and Compton, it became clear that in these experiments light behaves as particles called photon, which are different from Newton's corpuscles. The three facets of light corpuscles, waves and quanta, as viewed by the three great physicists Newton, Maxwell and Einstein are the subject matter of this book. The author has tried to show that these three are related in the sense that one can pass on from the first to the second and therefrom to the third by certain prescriptions. The physics of all the three are presented in great detail in three chapters.</p>

Newton's Corpuscles, Maxwell's Waves, and Einstein's Quanta

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

MV Learning

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