ABSTRACT
CONTENTS 14.1 Maxwell Photon Wave Function ..............................................................208 14.2 Measuring the Maxwell Photon Wave Function ................................... 212 Acknowledgments .............................................................................................. 213 References ............................................................................................................ 213
James Clerk Maxwell unknowingly discovered a correct relativistic, quantum theory for the light quantum, forty-three years before Einstein postulated the photon’s existence. In this theory, the usual Maxwell field is the quantum wave function for a single photon. When the non-operator Maxwell field of a single photon is second quantized, the standard Dirac theory of quantum optics is obtained. Recently, quantum-state tomography has been applied to experimentally determine photon wave functions.
