God said, "Let there be light."
So, did God need to use many means when He created light? Physically we have to ask, "Should all processes of light generation obey the same equation?" "Is this equation the 'God equation'?"
Regarding the types of "light sources", we categorize them according to "how the light is emitted" (the way it is emitted):
Type 0 - naturally existing light. This philosophical assumption is important. It is important because it is impossible to determine whether it is more essential that all light is produced by matter, or that all light exists naturally and is transformed into matter. Moreover, naturally existing light can provide us with an absolute spacetime background (free light has a constant speed of light, independent of the motion of the light source and independent of the observer, which is equivalent to an absolute reference system).
Type I - Orbital Electron Transition[1]: usually determines the characteristic spectra of the elements in the periodic table, they are the "fingerprints" of the elements; if there is human intervention, coherent optical lasers can be generated. According to the assumptions of Bohr's orbital theory, the transitions are instantaneous, there is no process, and no time is required*. Therefore, it also cannot be described using specific differential equations, but only by probabilities. However, Schrödinger believed that the wave equation could give a reasonable explanation, and that the transition was no longer an instantaneous process, but a transitional one. The wave function transitions from one stable state to another, with a "superposition of states" in between [2].
Type II - Accelerated motion of charged particles emitting light. There are various scenarios here, and it should be emphasized that theoretically they can produce light of any wavelength, infinitely short to infinitely long, and they are all photons. 1) Blackbody radiation [3][4]: produced by the thermal motion of charged particles [5], is closely dependent on the temperature, and has a continuous spectrum in terms of statistical properties. This is the most ubiquitous class of light sources, ranging from stars like the Sun to the cosmic microwave background radiation [6], all of which have the same properties. 2) Radio: the most ubiquitous example of this is the electromagnetic waves radiated from antennas of devices such as wireless broadcasting, wireless communications, and radar. 3)Synchrotron radiation[7],e+e− → e+e−γ;the electromagnetic radiation emitted when charged particles travel in curved paths. 4)bremsstrahlung[8],for example, e+e− → qqg → 3 jets[11];electromagnetic radiation produced by the acceleration or especially the deceleration of a charged particle after passing through the electric and magnetic fields of a nucleus,continuous spectrum. 5)Cherenkov Radiation[9]:light produced by charged particles when they pass through an optically transparent medium at speeds greater than the speed of light in that medium.
Type III:Partical reactions、Nuclear reactions:Any physical reaction process that produces photon (boson**) output. 1)the Gamma Decay;2)Annihilation of particles and antiparticles when they meet[10]: this is a universal property of symmetric particles, the most typical physical reaction;3)Various concomitant light, such as during particle collisions;4)Transformational light output when light interacts with matter, such as Compton scattering[12].
Type IV: Various redshifts and violet shifts, changing the relative energies of light: gravitational redshift and violet shift, Doppler shift; cosmological redshift.
Type V: Virtual Photon[13][14]?
Our questions are:
Among these types of light-emitting modes, type II and type IV light-emitting obey Maxwell's equation, and the type I and type III light-emitting processes are not clearly explained.
We can not know the light-emitting process, but we can be sure that the result, the final output of photons, is the same. Can we be sure that it is a different process that produces the same photons?
Is the thing that is capable of producing light, itself light? Or at least contains elements of light, e.g., an electric field E, a magnetic field H. If there aren't any elements of light in it, then how was it created? By what means was one energy, momentum, converted into another energy hν, momentum h/λ?
There is a view that "Virtual particles are indeed real particles. Quantum theory predicts that every particle spends some time as a combination of other particles in all possible ways"[15]. What then are the actual things that can fulfill this interpretation? Can it only be energy-momentum?
We believe everything needs to be described by mathematical equations (not made-up operators). If the output of a system is the same, then the process that bridges the output should also be the same. That is, the output equations for light are the same, whether it is a transition, an accelerated moving charged particle, or an annihilation process, the difference is only in the input.
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* Schrödinger said:the theory was silent about the period s of transition or 'quantum jumps' (as one then began to call them). Since intermediary states had to remain disallowed, one could not but regard the transition as instantaneous; but on the other hand, the radiating of a coherent wave train of 3 or 4 feet length, as it can be observed in an interferometer, would use up just about the average interval between two transitions, leaving the atom no time to 'be' in those stationary states, the only ones of which the theory gave a description.
** We know the most about photons, but not so much about the nature of W, Z, and g. Their mass and confined existence is a problem. We hope to be able to discuss this in a follow-up issue.
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Links to related issues:
【1】"How does light know its speed and maintain that speed?”;
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NO3_How_does_light_know_its_speed;
【2】"How do light and particles know that they are choosing the shortest path?”
https://www.researchgate.net/post/NO4_How_do_light_and_particles_know_that_they_are_choosing_the_shortest_path;
【3】"light is always propagated with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.";
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Speed_of_light_independent_of_the_speed_of_the_source_or_constant_for_all_observers;
【4】“Are annihilation and pair production mutually inverse processes?”; https://www.researchgate.net/post/NO8_Are_annihilation_and_pair_production_mutually_inverse_processes;
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Reference:
[1] Bohr, N. (1913). "On the constitution of atoms and molecules." The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 26(151): 1-25.
[2] Schrödinger, E. (1952). "Are there quantum jumps? Part I." The British Journal for the Philosophy of science 3.10 (1952): 109-123.
[3] Gearhart, C. A. (2002). "Planck, the Quantum, and the Historians." Physics in perspective 4(2): 170-215.
[4] Jain, P. and L. Sharma (1998). "The Physics of blackbody radiation: A review." Journal of Applied Science in Southern Africa 4: 80-101. 【GR@Pushpendra K. Jain】
[5] Arons, A. B. and M. Peppard (1965). "Einstein's Proposal of the Photon Concept—a Translation of the Annalen der Physik Paper of 1905." American Journal of Physics 33(5): 367-374.
[6] PROGRAM, P. "PLANCK PROGRAM."
[7] https://www.nist.gov/pml/sensor-science/what-synchrotron-radiation
[8] 韧致辐射;
[9] Neutrino detection by Cherenkov radiation:" Super-Kamiokande(超级神冈)." from https://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/sk/about/. 江门中微子实验 "The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO)." from http://juno.ihep.cas.cn/.
[10] Li, B. A. and C. N. Yang (1989). "CY Chao, Pair creation and Pair Annihilation." International Journal of Modern Physics A 4(17): 4325-4335.
[11] Schmitz, W. (2019). Particles, Fields and Forces, Springer.
[12] Compton, A. H. (1923). "The Spectrum of Scattered X-Rays." Physical Review 22(5): 409-413.
[13] Manoukian, E. B. (2020). Transition Amplitudes and the Meaning of Virtual Particles. 100 Years of Fundamental Theoretical Physics in the Palm of Your Hand: Integrated Technical Treatment. E. B. Manoukian. Cham, Springer International Publishing: 169-175.
[14] Jaeger, G. (2021). "Exchange Forces in Particle Physics." Foundations of Physics 51(1): 13.
[15] Are virtual particles really constantly popping in and out of existence? Or are they merely a mathematical bookkeeping device for quantum mechanics? - Scientific American.