In the quantum theory of electromagnetic fields Maxwell\u2019s equations play two roles.<\/p>\n
One is to describe the behaviour of the actual field observables which measure the combined effects of all possible numbers of photons, and the other is that they are satisfied by something that is as close as possible to being the \u201cwave function\u201d for a single photon.<\/p>\n
I say \u201cas close as possible\u201d and put \u201cwave function\u201d in scare quotes because it does not satisfy all the properties of a non-relativistic wave function. In relativistic theories, the concept of strict localization does not exist. It can only be approximated for massive particles in frames where they have low momentum, and cannot be done at all for photons. But nonetheless, (as discussed in this survey article<\/a> (.pdf<\/a>) by Iwo Bialynicki-Birula) with appropriate normalization, a function satisfying the complex form of Maxwell\u2019s equations can be used to generate probabilities for detection of a single photon in various experimental contexts.<\/p>\n See also the answer by ‘Chiral Anomaly’ to this question at physics stack-exchange<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: (1000) Alan Cooper’s answer to If particle nature of light is involved then what are Maxwell equations? – Quora<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the quantum theory of electromagnetic fields Maxwell\u2019s equations play two roles. One is to describe the behaviour of the actual field observables which measure the combined effects of all possible numbers of photons, and the other is that they are satisfied by something that is as close as possible to being the \u201cwave function\u201d … Continue reading Maxwell’s Equations for Photons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[87,76],"topics":[],"class_list":["post-1349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-quora-answers","tag-photons","tag-wave-function"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1353,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions\/1353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qpr.ca\/blogs\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=1349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}