Abstract
It is generally believed that absorption and stimulated emission are inverse processes, as both are driven by an external field, their strength is quantified by the same Einstein B coefficient, and they occur with a defined phase, opposite to each other, namely in phase and in anti-phase with the driving field, whereas spontaneous emission is a different process that occurs with an arbitrary phase with respect to a potential incident field. Recently, the phase relation in absorption and emission was shown to differ from this believe. Here it is verified via the amplitude–phase diagram and via the interference of sine waves that, precisely speaking, only the absorption process, in which a number φ + 1 of incident photons is decreased by one photon, and the emission process, in which a number φ of incident photons is increased by one photon, are truly inverse processes also in their phase. Particularly, this implies that absorption of a single incident photon and spontaneous emission of a photon into an empty mode are inverse processes in the amplitude–phase diagram.
Highlights
IntroductionLamb published a paper entitled “Anti-photon” in Applied Physics B [1], in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with how little a grip his scientific environment mastered upon the field of photonics
The two processes of absorption and stimulated emission of the electromagnetic field of one photon by an atom driven by the electromagnetic field of a single incident photon are connected by the facts that they are both (1) driven by an external electromagnetic field and (2) quantified by the same Einstein B coefficient
The two processes of absorption of a single incident photon by an atom and spontaneous emission of one photon from an atom into an empty mode are connected by the facts that (3) they are inverse processes in the amplitude–phase diagram, 1 3
Summary
Lamb published a paper entitled “Anti-photon” in Applied Physics B [1], in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with how little a grip his scientific environment mastered upon the field of photonics. He condemned the association of an electromagnetic wave with a particle—the photon. In one he reprimanded another Nobel laureate, Albert Einstein, for a fundamental conceptual mistake in his seminal paper from 1917 [2], when introducing a “new” (set within quotation marks by Lamb [1]) process of stimulated emission of radiation, quantified by the Einstein B coefficient. To Lamb—and, for once, to most of his scientific environment—it was crystal clear that absorption and
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