Do we count indivisible photons or discrete quantum events experienced by detectors?

摘要

As low light detection technologies are advancing, novel experiments like single molecule spectroscopy, quantum computation, quantum encryption are proliferating. Quantum mechanical detectors can produce only discrete "clicks" at different rates based on the propagating field energy through them, irrespective of whether the photons are divisible or indivisible packets of energy. This is because electrons are quantized elementary particles and they are always bound in quantized energy levels in different quantum systems. Highly successful quantum formalism is not capable of providing the microscopic picture of the processes undergoing during QM interactions; that is left to human imaginations allowing for sustained controversies and mis-interpretations. This paper underscores the paradoxes that arise with the assumption that photons are indivisible elementary particles based on the obvious but generally ignored fact that EM fields do not operate on (interfere with) each other. Then we propose that atomic or molecular emissions emerge and propagate out as space and time finite classical wave packets. We also suggest experiments to validate that the amplitude of a photon wave packet can be split and combined by classical optical components using the specific example of an N-slit grating.