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ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION AND MATTER

1.5 BLACKBODY RADIATION

Blackbody radiation played a most crucial role in the development of quantum physics through the work of Planck, who introduced in 1901 the notion of the quantization of electromagnetic energy leading to a correct description of the energy spectrum of blackbody radiation. In 1917, well before the development of Quantum Physics, Einstein revisited blackbody radiation when he introduced his well known A and B coefcients and re-derived Plancks energy spectrum of blackbody radiation. The Einstein coefcient A describes spontaneous emission, while B (two coefcients really) describes induced emission and induced absorption of radiation. Einstein considered a quantum physical system that has two states, a ground state and an excited state. The Einstein coefcient A is the probability that the system makes a spontaneous transition from the excited state to the ground state with the emission of a photon. The Einstein coefcient B12 is the probability that the system goes from the ground state to the excited state under absorption of a photon and B21 to go from the excited state to the ground state under absorption of a photon and the subsequent emission of two photons. Einstein was able to show using a thermodynamic argument that the two B coefcients are equal. In view of its importance we follow in Einsteins footsteps, but treat blackbody radiation with the tools of second quantization, an option that Einstein did not have at the time. We consider a quantum physical system that has two states, a ground state 1 with energy E1 and an excited state 2 with energy E2 . In the presence of electromagnetic radiation we will have transitions +12 (1.136) If an assembly of identical systems is in equilibrium with radiation we have from the Boltzmann distribution that eE1 /kT n1 = E /kT = e n2 e 2
/kT

(1.137)

where n1 and n2 are the number of systems in state 1 and 2 respectively and E2 E1 = . If we have initially n (k) photons, then the matrix element for absorption of one of the photons is 2; n (k) 1 a (k) eikx (k) p 1; n (k) = n (k) 2 eikx (k) p 1 (1.138)

We must annihilate a photon with momentum k and polarization from the initial state and select therefore the operator a (k). This operator is accompanied by the exponential with a + sign in its exponent and (k).