Quantisation of the free electromagnetic field implies quantisation of its angular momentum

A. M. Stewart

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    It is shown that when the gauge-invariant Bohr-Rosenfeld commutators of the free electromagnetic field are applied to the expressions for the linear and angular momentum of the electromagnetic field interpreted as operators then, in the absence of electric and magnetic charge densities, these operators satisfy the canonical commutation relations for momentum and angular momentum. This confirms their validity as operators that can be used in quantum mechanical calculations of angular momentum.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)772-776
    Number of pages5
    JournalJournal of Modern Optics
    Volume58
    Issue number9
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 20 May 2011

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