The angstrom or ångström ~10−10 m

QUANTIZATION OF THE
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD
Introduction
Lets move away from treating light as an electromagnetic wave using classical
Maxwell’s equations and we will develop quantum formalism to describe
radiation.

• Geometric Optics
– Light as ray
– Refraction, reflection, absorption
– Fibre

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• Wave Optics
– Light as n EM radiation
– Superposition and polarization
– Interaction with optical media such as dielectrics or metals

• Quantum Optics
– Light as quantized EM field, and how to describe it

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Description of EM radiation using quantum
mechanics
• Canonical Quantization:
– This is a general procedure of starting with classical system and
quantizing it
• Simple Harmonic Oscillation
– Ubiquitous and simplest quantum system that appears everywhere in
classical mechanics as well as quantum mechanics.
• Quantized EM radiation (our target)
– Single mode of EM radiation behaves like a simple harmonic oscillator.

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Canonical Quantization

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Canonical Quantization
• This is a general procedure of starting with classical system and quantizing it.
• From description of physical system using classical mechanics to describing it
using quantum mechanics, known as canonical quantization.
• Describing a physical system using classical mechanics.
– Consider a system of N particles with dynamical variables.
– We write them out as a set of “two-N dynamical variables” the first N
variables are denoted by q1, q2, …, qN (known as the position) and the
other N variables are p1, p2, …, pN (known as the momenta).
(q1 , q2 ,..., qN ; p1 , p2 ,..., pN )
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• Position gives you the information of where it is, and momentum gives you
information of how it moves and in which direction, and speed.
• Then you can apply first order differential equation of time to find the position
of any later time.
• The evolution is governed by 1st order differential equations of time:
(q1 (t0 ),..., qN (t0 ); p1 (t0 ),..., pN (t0 ))

(q1 (t ),..., qN (t ); p1 (t ),..., pN (t ))

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• In particular, by doing this you write the energy of the system
• Therefore, the energy of the system is given by the Hamiltonian, denoted by H
H (q1 , q2 ,..., qN ; p1 , p2 ,..., pN )

• These set of variables (q j , p j ) are known as canonically conjugate

variables.

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• Now how do you find the evolution of your system?
• Apply the Hamilton’s equations of motion BUT only if you have canonically
conjugate variables, so your positions obey the following Hamilton’s equations
of motion:

dp j dH
dq j dH 
 dt dq j
dt dp j
Evolution of position, qj Evolution of momentum pj

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• Now, what do we do in quantum mechanics?
• Once you know the canonically conjugate variables in your classical system,
take your classical system described by the dynamical variables,
and you promote these variables to not be not just scalars but to be
(q1quantum
, q2 ,..., qN )
operators.
(q1 ,..., qN ; p1 ,..., pN )

(qˆ1 ,..., qˆ N ; pˆ1 ,..., pˆ N )

• The hat (^) denotes that they are quantum operators and they obey the
following canonical commutation relations:
[qˆ j , pˆ k ]  i  jk commutator is defined as [ Aˆ , Bˆ ]  AB
ˆ ˆ  BA
ˆˆ

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• The order in which the operators are action is important.

j  k   jk  1 j  k   jk  0
qˆ j pˆ k  pˆ k qˆ j  i

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 [qˆ j , pˆ k ]  i  jk
• Now describing a physical system using quantum mechanics.
• From quantum Hamiltonian:
H (q1 ,..., qN ; p1 ,..., pN )

H (qˆ1 ,..., qˆ N ; pˆ1 ,..., pˆ N )

• Evolution given by Schrodinger equation is given by the following:

d
i |    Hˆ |  
dt
• The ket psi is the state of vector describing your system
• Therefore, Hamiltonian plays a crucial part in describing the
evolution of the system and state vector as well.
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EXAMPLE:
• Particle moving in one dimension under the influence of some potential
given by V(x).

• What are the canonically conjugate variables?

dx
qx pm
dt

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• The choice of q and p can be done by general procedure using Lagrangian
mechanics.
• However by writing classical Hamiltonian which is given by Kinetic energy
plus the potential energy given by

• Check if the Hamiltonian gives you reasonable results:

dq dH p dp dH V ( x)
   
dt dp m dt dq dx
• From classical mechanics, these are Newton’s equations of motion.

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• By taking q and p, we can check if they are canonically conjugate variables
because by applying them in Hamilton’s equations we recover known results
from classical mechanics.
• So we ready now to quantize our system.

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• Particle moving in one dimension under the influence of some potential
given by V(x).

Classical Hamiltonian Quantum Hamiltonian

pˆ 2
Hˆ   V ( xˆ ) [ xˆ , pˆ ]  i
2m

• Now we can calculate the dynamics in position representation

x̂  x 
p̂  i Recall also from lecture 2
x
• And when you substitute it back in to Hamiltonian and plug it into the
Schrodinger equation d
|    Hˆ |  
d   2
 2 i
dt
i  ( x, t )     V ( x)  ( x, t )
 2m  x
2
dt 
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Simple Harmonic Oscillation

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 • Classical Simple Harmonic

• It is the same as what discussed in canonical quantization but now the potential
V(x) has a particular shape given by the following equation:

p2 1 p 2
1
H  m 2 x 2 (KE) m 2 x 2 (PE)
2m 2 2m 2

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 p2 1
H  m 2 x 2
2m 2

• If we apply Hamilton’s equations, we get the following two sets of equation:

dx dH p dx
  pm
dt dp m dt

dp

dH
  m x
2 dp d  dx  d 2x
 m   m 2
dt dx dt dt  dt  dt
d 2x
m 2  m 2 x
dt
d 2x
2
  x This is a simple harmonic oscillator
2

dt
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 d 2x
  2
x
• To solve this simple harmonic oscillator equation:
2
dt

x(t )  a cos(t   ) dx
pm
dt
and corresponding p(t)
p (t )  m a sin(t   )

• Now we have seen that x and p are canonically conjugate variables in this
case, so we can quantize the whole system to obtain the quantum
Hamiltonian, Ĥ by replacing p  pˆ and x  xˆ
ˆ pˆ 2
1
H  m 2 xˆ 2 must satisfy the canonical commutation relation
2m 2
[ xˆ , pˆ ]  i

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 ˆ pˆ 2 1
H  m 2 xˆ 2
2m 2

Energy and Energy Eigenstates

• Energy and energy eigenstates of this Hamiltonian is obtained by solving the
eigenvalue problem

Hˆ |    E |   This is known as the time-independent

Schrodinger equation

To do this do the following:

• In position representation:

x̂  x p̂  i
x
2 1
2
H   m 2 2
x |     ( x) wavefunction
2m x 2
2
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 2 1
2
H   m 2 x 2
2m x 2
2

• Substitute as the Hamiltonian an wave function, then the time-independent

Schrodinger equation is written as
|     ( x)

 2
2 1 2 2
  m x  ( x)  E ( x)
 2m x 2
2


• Imposing normalization condition, i.e. the modulus of  ( x) integrated over all

2

space is equal to 1. That is also similar to say that the particle must be obtained
in the space. 
  ( x) dx
2


The solution is  1  m x 2 2
En    n   , corresponding  n ( x)  e H n ( x)
 2
d n x 2
where H n ( x)  (1) n e x
2

n
e
dx
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  1
En    n   ,
 2
 m x 2 2
 n ( x)  e H n ( x)

include Gaussian envelope

e  m x 2 2

Hermite polynomial of degree n
H n ( x)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYhVsdSPz24

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