Alternative perspective on photonic tunneling

Abstract

A relativistic quantum-mechanical description of guided waves is given, based on which we present an alternative way to describe and interpret the propagation of electromagnetic wave packets through an undersized waveguide. In particular, we show that the superluminal phenomenon of evanescent modes is actually a known conclusion in quantum field theory, and it preserves a quantum-mechanical causality.

24 pages, Revised version based on PRA75,013813(2007)

References in corpus (5)

• Unified time analysis of photon and (nonrelativistic) particle Tunnelling, and the Superluminal group-velocity problem
• There are No Causality Problems for Fermi's Two Atom System
• Instantaneous Spreading and Einstein Causality in Quantum Theory
• On the Localization of One-Photon States
• Apparent Superluminal Behavior

Cited by in corpus (8)

• On virtual phonons, photons and electrons
• Continuous-variable entanglement generated with a hybrid PT-symmetric system
• Universal tunneling time for all fields
• Macroscopic violation of special relativity
• Superluminal propagation of evanescent modes as a quantum effect
• Average and instantaneous velocities of energy of evanescent modes
• Another derivation of Weinberg's formula
• The effect of gravitational spin-orbit coupling on the circular photon orbit in the Schwarzschild geometry