Hybrid photon model bridges classical and quantum optics Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 Chandra.Roychoudhuri@uconn.edu Abstract (35): Photons are transient QM energy packets at emission that evolve as Huygens wave-packets. We use the quantum cup postulate, along with known interferometric and spectrometric data to resolve the currently perceived contradictions. OCIS codes: (270.5570) Quantum detectors; (260.1960) Diffraction theory; (300.0300) Spectroscopy 1. Introduction Since 1925, the Schrodinger and Heisenberg formalisms of Quantum Mechanics (QM) have been guiding us with consistent successes in validating observations of the world of atoms and molecules. In our fields of optical science and engineering, the sustained progress has been continuing since Fresnel gave his mathematical formalism in 1816 of Huygens Principle (1678). Maxwell “capped it up” in 1864 with his classical theory of electromagnetism and his wave equation. HF integral is a solution of Maxwell’s wave equation. Even the steady advancement in the fields of Nano- and plasmonic-photonics, dealing with light-matter interaction in the microscopic domain, we do not propagate “indivisible light quanta” (ILQ). Thus, ILQ has become a major conceptual divide between the fields of classical and quantum optics. This paper resolves this divide by presenting a hybrid model for photon using supporting arguments dominantly from Planck, Einstein and Lamb. Planck argued in his book [1] that light is emitted as discrete quantum inside the blackbody cavity, but they are homogenized through diffractive propagation, while passing through each other without any mutual interaction, except when they interact with materials. Huygens [2, 3] also explicitly articulated this Non-Interaction of Waves (NIW). Einstein had expressed that even after fifty years of brooding on “what are light quanta”; he did not get any deeper understanding about light quanta [see p. xvi in ref.3]. We should note that Einstein was the originator of the concept of “indivisible light quanta”. Lamb had been a strong proponent of the semi classical model for light matter interactions [4]. The approach is beginning to see more steady publications [5]. 2. Accommodating spontaneous and stimulated emissions as semi-exponential classical wave packet. We integrate the above views by proposing a hybrid photon model for both the spontaneous and the stimulated emissions. Here is the first part of our proposal. As required by QM, the photons are discrete quantum cup size energy, mn mn E h ν ∆ = , when released by excited atoms and molecules. However, it immediately perturbs the space possessing the properties 0 ε (electric tension) and 0 µ (restoring magnetic tension). The result is the emergence of a Huygens-Fresnel wave packet with classical semi-exponential temporal envelope [see Fig.1(a)], which propagates (a) (b) (c) (d) Figure 1. (a) Proposed spontaneously emitted hybrid photon. It is a quantum of energy at emission and emerges out as a wave packet. The wave carrier frequency ν corresponds to the dipolar transition frequency of the emitting atom. The total energy carried by the wave packet corroborates QM prediction, E h ν ∆ = . Observed spectral line shape will be close to the observed Lorentzian value because the envelope of the photon wave packet is dominantly exponential. (b) A Mach-Zehnder interferometer in scanning mode. Consider the experiment when the wave fronts of the two output beams are combined on the beam combiner (BC) to be coincident, along with the Poynting vectors precisely collinear. When the two incident amplitudes are equal. (c) Output energy oscillates between “0” and “1” between the two output ports. (d) The “pi” phase shift in external reflection is a critical physical parameter for the boundary layer to be able to re-direct energy of one beam to the other. out perpetually with the Maxwell predicted velocity. This is why the formalisms of Huygens-Fresnel and Maxwell have been guiding the steady advancements in optical sciences, while we are giving only lip service to “photons”, or