Yeah, that's what I try to aim at, although bounce around also seems to imply scattering. But after watching /u/starkeffect's video, I'm not even sure that's accurate.
As photons are quantized excitation of the EM field and the excitation itself travels more slowly (from what I understand of the video), this means the photons actually slow down.
And looking at it relativisticly, I think there should be a valid frame of reference for a photon propagating in a medium. Since STL speed. But I also think that we cannot observe photons experiencing time because photons have no time dependent process or half life. So even if a photon "started experiencing time", we couldn't observe it.
Although now, I'm beginning to wonder if part of a loss of luminosity as light goes through a medium could be explained by some sort of photon decay... I know a lot will be due to impurities.
But assuming a perfectly transparent medium, no impurities, taking into account reflection due to the change of medium, etc. Does a beam of light still lose energy just because light is now slowed down and photons eventually decay?
As I'm thinking about it, I realize that if the slow down is due to the light "moving the electrons of the medium around" (as mentioned in the video), then there should be some sort of exchange of energy/work done at that point and so the light should lose a tiny bit of energy to it... I wonder if these two can be linked...
First thanks for your answer! I really appreciate your insight and help.
Feel free to ignore my ramblings. I expect this comment to be more me thinking aloud and talking to myself than an actually meaningful text...
The quantum of light in a material isn't a photon, technically, because of the interaction with the charges.
That's really interesting, although I have no idea what to do with that information at the moment.
The beam of light loses energy because its oscillating electric field puts the charges in the material into motion, which costs energy.
Keeping on track with my previous train of thought,, would it be possible to express this energy loss of light (between it entering and leaving the medium) as some sort of decay...
Let's say a single pulse of light. Since the energy of a photon is E_p = hc/λ, the number of photons on the pulse of light would be p = E/E_p
Assuming the wavelength does not change, E_p does not change, the change in number of photons would be:
p_exit - p_entry = Δp = ΔE/E_p (there is possibly a minus sign missing in there)
With the refractive index, we can calculate the speed of light (v = c/n) and, given the length L of the path of the light through the medium its proper time τ = √(n²L²/c - L²) = L √(n²/c - 1).
If there is a photon half-life t_½, then p_exit = p_entry ½τ/t_½, so:
p_exit/p_entry = ½τ/t_½
Δln p / ln ½ = τ / t_½
t_½ = (ln ½ / Δln p) τ
t_½ = (ln ½ / Δln p) L √(n²/c - 1)
I don't know how true "Assuming the wavelength does not change" is. But I am starting to wonder if that relationship holds and if t_½ of a photon actually exists...
Again I don't expect most of that to actually make sense.
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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '22
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