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The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle
Coherent emission of light by free charged particles is believed to be successfully captured by classical electromagnetism in all experimental settings. However, recent advances triggered fundamental questions regarding the role of the particle wave function in these processes. Here, we find that ev...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8087421/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33931454 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf8096 |
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author | Karnieli, Aviv Rivera, Nicholas Arie, Ady Kaminer, Ido |
author_facet | Karnieli, Aviv Rivera, Nicholas Arie, Ady Kaminer, Ido |
author_sort | Karnieli, Aviv |
collection | PubMed |
description | Coherent emission of light by free charged particles is believed to be successfully captured by classical electromagnetism in all experimental settings. However, recent advances triggered fundamental questions regarding the role of the particle wave function in these processes. Here, we find that even in seemingly classical experimental regimes, light emission is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence and correlations of the emitting particle. We use quantum electrodynamics to show how the particle’s momentum uncertainty determines the optical coherence of the emitted light. We find that the temporal duration of Cherenkov radiation, envisioned for almost a century as a shock wave of light, is limited by underlying entanglement between the particle and light. Our findings enable new capabilities in electron microscopy for measuring quantum correlations of shaped electrons. Last, we propose new Cherenkov detection schemes, whereby measuring spectral photon autocorrelations can unveil the wave function structure of any charged high-energy particle. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8087421 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-80874212021-05-13 The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle Karnieli, Aviv Rivera, Nicholas Arie, Ady Kaminer, Ido Sci Adv Research Articles Coherent emission of light by free charged particles is believed to be successfully captured by classical electromagnetism in all experimental settings. However, recent advances triggered fundamental questions regarding the role of the particle wave function in these processes. Here, we find that even in seemingly classical experimental regimes, light emission is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence and correlations of the emitting particle. We use quantum electrodynamics to show how the particle’s momentum uncertainty determines the optical coherence of the emitted light. We find that the temporal duration of Cherenkov radiation, envisioned for almost a century as a shock wave of light, is limited by underlying entanglement between the particle and light. Our findings enable new capabilities in electron microscopy for measuring quantum correlations of shaped electrons. Last, we propose new Cherenkov detection schemes, whereby measuring spectral photon autocorrelations can unveil the wave function structure of any charged high-energy particle. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2021-04-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8087421/ /pubmed/33931454 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf8096 Text en Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Karnieli, Aviv Rivera, Nicholas Arie, Ady Kaminer, Ido The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
title | The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
title_full | The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
title_fullStr | The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
title_full_unstemmed | The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
title_short | The coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
title_sort | coherence of light is fundamentally tied to the quantum coherence of the emitting particle |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8087421/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33931454 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abf8096 |
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