Re: Photon-photon interactions

mark.hagerman@xxxxxxxxx wrote: 
  Photons only occupy quantum states in the space near matter; in a
sense, the presence of matter quantizes space. Are you looking for
some kind of "generic" quantum interaction between the photons and
the sphere's inner surface? That'll only work if the sphere's
diameter approaches the photons' wavelength (cavity resonator-wise).


That's what I meant, yes. This (extremely hypothetical) container would
constrain the photons to wavelengths that would fit one of the
"stationary
states" of the Schrodinger equation. I'm not mathematician enough to
calculate those states, of course, or I wouldn't have needed to post
the
original question.


  That's why I mentioned the phrase "cavity resonators".

I realize that for visible light, a container diameter of, say, a few
centimeters
would have a virtually continuous spectrum of allowed states. I was
just trying
to be thorough.

Make it small enough to fit your criteria and you run into other quantization problems, frinst surface roughness. IOW it ain't a sphere at that small a scale, complicating things (or simplifying them if you get the polygonal angles right in that the number and kinds of modes you have to deal with gets smaller, but then you might as well go with a right prism).

Cavity resonators for radio frequencies are easier to make "smooth" at the frequencies involved. They've been operated at completely ridiculous power levels and AFAIK no photon-photon interaction has been observed; first you run into wall-to-wall arcing and/or cavity heating due to resistive losses in the wall material. The latter problem is avoidable with superconducting cavities, but the first is a "properties of the vacuum" issue (disregarding the fact that really high-powered RF waveguide systems usually are filled with a high-index gas just to avoid arcing, but then the kinds of interactions you're interested in would be dominated by the gas' properties).


  Mark L. Fergerson

.