Photon detection operator and complementarity between electric detector and magnetic detector

TL;DR

This paper derives a photon detection operator based on quantum electrodynamics, revealing how electric and magnetic properties of atoms influence photon detection, and proposes an experiment to test wave-particle complementarity related to field non-commutativity.

Contribution

It introduces a new photon detection operator derived from indirect measurement theory, linking detection probability to atomic electric and magnetic properties, and discusses complementarity in terms of field non-commutativity.

Findings

Photon detection probability depends on atomic electric and magnetic dipole moments.

Proposed experiment to test wave-particle complementarity of light.

Complementarity related to non-commutativity of electric and magnetic fields.

Abstract

It had been a long standing problem that there is no consistent definition of photon position operator nor photon number density in the context of quantum theory. In this paper we derive the photon detection operator, which defines location of photon absorption, by applying the theory of indirect measurement to quantum electrodynamics. It is shown that the photon detection probability depends on electric properties of a photon-absorbing atom, in particular, on both electric and magnetic dipole moments of the atom. An experiment is proposed, in which the complementarity of wave-particle nature of light will be tested. It is also discussed that the complementarity is related to the non-commutativity of the electric and the magnetic fields.