The size stability of the photon has been a puzzle for many decades. However, the self-focusing of a laser beam in matter may provide some guidance to this problem. A conceptual basis for this effect will be accompanied by calculations based on the laser models. It does not necessarily fit. Nevertheless, it leads to better models. The notion of a self-generated light pipe for a photon supports the image of the photon as a soliton. Two photon models are developed. In one, there is a circulating high-energy density that creates a finite-radius light pipe, which thus confines the photon to a core, but with an extended evanescent wave about it. It confines by total internal reflection. In the other, the confinement mode is that of a self-generated graded refractive index (GRIN) optical lens, which does not produce an evanescent wave; but, the electromagnetic energy is spread into the region that would be occupied by the evanescent wave of the first model. The models may be equivalent; both indicate the nature of a relativistic boundary condition that should be imposed on Maxwell’s equations to allow inclusion of photons into his model.

Date Published: 1 October 2013
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 8832, The Nature of Light: What are Photons? V, 88320M (1 October 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2022001

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8832:
The Nature of Light: What are Photons? V
Chandrasekhar Roychoudhuri; Al F. Kracklauer; Hans De Raedt, Editor(s)