It is argued that the findings of a recent reanalysis by Compagno and Persico [Phys. Rev. A 57, 1595 (1998)] of the Bohr--Rosenfeld procedure for the measurement of a single space-time-averaged component of the electromagnetic field are incorrect when the field measurement time is shorter than that required for light to traverse the measurement's test body. To this end, the time-averaged "self-force" on the test body, assumed for simplicity to be of a spherical shape, is evaluated in terms of a one-dimensional quadrature for the general trajectory allowed for the test body by Compagno and Persico, and in closed form for the limiting steplike trajectory used by Bohr and Rosenfeld.
The problem of the measurability of the electromagnetic field is investigated 1) in the framework of the abstract restricted-path-integral method, and 2) by explicitly accounting the action of the field onto the meter and its back reaction. The meaning of the previously obtained results as well as of the classical results of Bohr and Rosenfeld are made clear. The restricted-path-integral method with integration over field configurations is shown to give an estimation on the measurability of the field by any device not disturbing the measured field (in the process of measurement) more than by t…
The investigation presented by Doiron, Hache, and Winful [Phys. Rev. A 76, 023823 (2007)] is not valid for the tunneling process as claimed in the paper.
A missing angle-dependent prefactor in the wave functions for half-integer magnetic flux obtained in [Y. Aharonov and D. Bohm, Phys. Rev. 115, 485 (1959)] is supplied, without which the result is not single-valued. No physical conclusions of the paper are affected.
Recently Drummond and Hillery [Phys. Rev.A 59, 691(1999)] presented a quantum theory of dispersion based on the analysis of a coupled system of the electromagnetic field and atoms in the multipolar QED formulation. The theory has led to the explicit mode-expansions for various field-operators in a homogeneous medium characterized by an arbitrary number of resonant transitions with different frequencies. In this Comment, we drawn attention to a similar multipolar study by Juzeliunas [Phys. Rev.A 53, 3543 (1996); 55, 929 (1997)] on the field quantization in a discrete molecular (or atomic) mediu…
We consider the three-body Casimir-Polder interaction between three atoms during their dynamical self-dressing. We show that the time-dependent three-body Casimir-Polder interaction energy displays nonlocal features related to quantum properties of the electromagnetic field and to the nonlocality of spatial field correlations. We discuss the measurability of this intriguing phenomenon and its relation with the usual concept of stationary three-body forces.
The title of this article is misleading. The authors have investigated a resonator but not a tunneling barrier see also Refs.\cite{Winful2} The measured superluminal group velocity and discussed is that studied on a Lorentz-Lorenz oscillator by Sommerfeld and Brillouin a hundred years ago \cite{Brillouin}. It is similar to the faster than light experiment by Wang et al. based also on anomalous dispersion with a complex refractive index of a resonator \cite{Wang}. Tunneling, however, is understood and performed by electromagnetic evanescent modes or by tunneling solutions of the Schrödinger equ…
Are the electromagnetic scalar and vector potentials dispensable? Lev Vaidman has suggested that local interactions of gauge-invariant quantities, e.g. magnetic torques, suffice for the description of all quantum electromagnetic phenomena. We analyze six thought experiments that challenge this suggestion. All of them have explanations in terms of $local$ interactions of gauge-dependent quantities, in addition, some have explanations in terms of nonlocal interactions of gauge-invariant quantities. We claim, however, that two of our examples have no gauge-invariant formal description and that, i…
We comment on publications by N. V. Budko on the near- and intermediate- as well as far-field causal properties of classical electro-magnetic fields. Extension to second-quantized fields in the presence but arbitrary but classical sources is comment upon.
Recently Bo E. Sernelius [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 71}, 235114 (2005)] investigated the effects of spatial dispersion on the thermal Casimir force between two metal half spaces. He claims that incorporating spatial dispersion results in a negligible contribution from the transverse electric mode at zero frequency as compared to the transverse magnetic mode. We demonstrate that this conclusion is not reliable because, when applied to the Casimir effect, the approximate description of spatial dispersion used is unjustified.
The Comment by Wolfgang Ketterle (Ref.[1]) purports to present a viable model of superradiance in condensates. However, Ref.[1] is not able to explain the red/blue pump detuning asymmetry that was first observed recently by us (Ref.[2]). It is clear from our original paper (Ref.[3]) that the rate-equation-based theories of Ref.[1] are incomplete since they only model the final growth stage of the process when a red-detuned pump is used. Our theoretical framework (Ref.[3]), on the other hand, also treats the initial growth stage of superradiance and is therefore also capable of explaining the g…
Periodic signals in electrical and electronic equipment can cause interference in nearby devices. Randomized modulation of those signals spreads their energy through the frequency spectrum and can help to mitigate electromagnetic interference problems. The inherently random nature of quantum phenomena makes them a good control signal. I present a quantum modulation method based on the random statistics of quantum light. The paper describes pulse width modulation schemes where a Poissonian light source acts as a random control that spreads the energy of the potential interfering signals. I give…
In our Comment we question the validity of the claim made by the authors of \cite{cc} that their solutions of the Dirac equation in an external {\em time-dependent} electromagnetic field describe beams of electrons. In every time-dependent field, no matter how weak, which has {\em infinite} time duration, there is a continuous electron-positron pair creation and annihilation. Without the proper accounting for these processes, the mathematical solutions of the Dirac equation are not directly applicable to realistic physical situations. In particular, the time evolution of the average values $\l…
The problem of infrared divergence of the effective electromagnetic field produced by elementary charges is revisited using the model of an electron freely evolving in a photon bath. It is shown that for any finite travel time, the effective field of the electron is infrared-finite, and that in each order of perturbation theory the radiative contributions grow without bound in the large-time limit. Using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism, factorization of divergent contributions in multi-loop diagrams is proved, and summation of the resulting infinite series is performed. It is demonstrated that…
Recently, Chen \em et al\rm.\ [New J. Phys. {\bf 13} (2011) 083018] presented experimental results, accompanied by quantum-mechanical analysis, showing that the quantum interference behavior of Bell states could be simulated in a modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer whose inputs are pseudothermal light beams obtained by passing laser light through a rotating ground-glass diffuser. Their experiments and their theory presumed low-flux operation in which the simulated quantum interference is observed via photon-coincidence counting. We first show that the Chen \em et al\rm.\ photon-coincidence co…
We argue that while the experiment of Remez et al. is interesting and its conclusions may well be correct, the observed lack of dependence of the measured distributions on the electron's transverse coherence length should have been expected for the parameters chosen. This is because for Smith-Purcell radiation it is the coherence length of a virtual photon that plays a role of the radiation formation width and not the entire electron's coherence length that can well be orders of magnitude larger. This is a common feature for all the radiation processes in which a photon is emitted not directly…
Long-range properties of the two-point correlation function of the electromagnetic field produced by an elementary particle are investigated. Using the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism it is shown that this function is finite in the coincidence limit outside the region of particle localization. In this limit, the leading term in the long-range expansion of the correlation function is calculated explicitly, and its gauge independence is proved. The leading contribution turns out to be of zero order in the Planck constant, and the relative value of the root mean square fluctuation of the Coulomb pote…
Recently, Chen \em et al \rm.\ [Phys. Rev. A 84, 033835 (2011)] reported observation of anticorrelated photon coincidences in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer whose input light came from a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser that had been rendered spatially incoherent by passage through a rotating ground-glass diffuser. They provided a quantum-mechanical explanation of their results, which ascribes the anticorrelation to two-photon interference. They also developed a classical-light treatment of the experiment, and showed that it was incapable of explaining the anticorrelation behavior. Here we show th…
We argue that the theories of Volokitin and Persson [Comment arXiv:1405:2525], of Dedkov and Kyasov [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 20 (2008) 354006], and Pieplow and Henkel [New J. Phys. 15 (2013) 023027] agree on the electromagnetic force on a small, polarizable particle that is moving parallel to a planar, macroscopic body, as far as the contribution of evanescent waves is concerned. The apparent differences are discussed in detail and explained by choices of units and integral transformations. We point out in particular the role of Lorentz contraction in the procedure used by Volokitin and Pers…
Recently Yampol'skii et al. [Phys. Rev. A v.82, 032511 (2010)] advocated that Lifshitz theory is not applicable when the characteristic wavelength of the fluctuating electromagnetic field, responsible for the thermal correction to the Casimir force, is larger than the size of the metal test bodies. It was claimed that this is the case in experiments which exclude Lifshitz theory combined with the Drude model. We calculate the wavelengths of the evanescent waves giving the dominant contribution to the thermal correction and we find that they are much smaller than the sizes of the test bodies. T…
