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ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION AND MATTER

PROBLEMS
(1) Gauge Transformations. Consider, in a nite volume of space, a superposition of a Coulomb eld from a stationary point charge and a time-dependent electromagnetic eld. There are no currents, the time-dependent elds are generated by currents at innity. Use the Lorentz gauge. The potentials are given by: A(x, t) = a sin (k x t) e (x, t) = v sin (k x t) + |x| (1.168) (1.169)

(a) Derive relations between a, v, k and , using the wave equations and the Lorentz condition and comment on these. Make a gauge transformation to the radiation gauge, using (x, t) = (b) (c) (d) (e) v cos (k x t) (1.170)

Calculate the new potentials A and . Show that the new A is (still) perpendicular to k. Write down the Lorentz condition in terms of the new potentials. Briey comment on your results: does the presence of a static Coulomb eld change any results obtained thus far in second quantization of the electromagnetic eld? (2) Second Quantization. (a) Derive the momentum operator of the quantized electromagnetic eld, starting with the Poynting vector. Show all steps. (b) Consider this result and the energy operator. What were Plancks and Einsteins hypotheses concerning blackbody radiation and the photoelectric effect and how can these be derived from the results of second quantization? (3) Spontaneous Emission. Calculate the rate for spontaneous emission of a single photon by a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator making a transition from state i to state f . Keep it general: do not assume that one of the states is the ground state or that they correspond to adjacent energy levels. Sum over the polarization of the emitted photon to obtain the rate differential in the angles of the two photons. Integrate the differential probability over angles to get the total rate. Use the operator formalism instead of wavefunctions.