How many photons in one airy disc?

Hi,

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

In a parallel light rays coming from distance point to the objective
lens, how many photon(s) are there and what's the distribution??

Basically. What is the relationship between photons and light rays
in telescope optics??

Thanks.

jayz

On 29 Jan 2006 04:49:21 -0800, "jayz" wrote:

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

The intensity of the Airy disk is determined by the photon flux
(photons/second), which is dependent on both the aperture of the
telescope and the intensity of the source. An accurate calculation would
also consider atmospheric losses and optical losses, although these are
relatively small.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"jayz" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

In a parallel light rays coming from distance point to the objective
lens, how many photon(s) are there and what's the distribution??

Basically. What is the relationship between photons and light rays
in telescope optics??

Thanks.

jayz


why do you ask?

EP Guy wrote:
"jayz" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

In a parallel light rays coming from distance point to the objective
lens, how many photon(s) are there and what's the distribution??

Basically. What is the relationship between photons and light rays
in telescope optics??

Thanks.

jayz


why do you ask?

I've been following the debates of the Afshar experiment in which
Bohr Quantum Complementary Principle is allegedly disproven.
Some think there is a flaw in his experiment. The debates is
still ongoing. See the following link:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/images/...imentSmall.jpg
(press the magnify icon to enlarge)

http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/11/vi...mentarity.html

http://irims.org/blog/index.php/2005...ome_1#comments

http://users.rowan.edu/~afshar/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afshar_experiment

In the first url illustration. The double slit uses a lens. So I was
tracing
what should have happened to each photon from the source or its
path and the connection with the light rays. In light rays, there
are many photons moving within one light ray in random, right?
or does one light ray represent one photon?? In QM, they talk
about fields, wave, particle and I'm trying to see what is the
relevance or connection to light ray in telescope with regards
to them. What do you (or others) think? Note Afshar experiment
puts diffraction grating in the lens so telescope guys should
be more familiar with the aberrations it should cause.

jayz

On 1/29/06 4:49 AM, in article
, "jayz"
wrote:

Hi,

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

In a parallel light rays coming from distance point to the objective
lens, how many photon(s) are there and what's the distribution??

Basically. What is the relationship between photons and light rays
in telescope optics??

Thanks.

jayz

382,395,295,2116.43.

They more or less travel t6he same path.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

Salmon Egg wrote:
On 1/29/06 4:49 AM, in article
, "jayz"
wrote:

Hi,

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

In a parallel light rays coming from distance point to the objective
lens, how many photon(s) are there and what's the distribution??

Basically. What is the relationship between photons and light rays
in telescope optics??

Thanks.

jayz

382,395,295,2116.43.

They more or less travel t6he same path.

Bill

-- Ferme le Bush

Ok. So a light ray is composed of numerous photons travelling in the
same
path.

Now refer to this image:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/images/...imentSmall.jpg
(use magnify to enlarge)

So it's clear the the behavior of light as wave and particle can be
detected
at the same time violating the principle of complementary in quantum
mechanics enough to cause the "Quantum Bombshell" headlines in

http://www.newscientist.com/article....mg18324575.300

But a detractor says something is wrong with his analysis.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/11/vi...mentarity.html

Now. reading It. I think Lubos doesn't understand that as each
light ray hit the lens, it converge into an airy disc so each photon
that doesn't pass thru the wires is still affected by the wires since
the detector detects a particular airy disc (composed of all the
photons in one light ray) and not a single photon, right?? So
Lubos is wrong? sci.physics dudes agree Lubos is
right. But maybe you opticians and telescope airy discers
can analyze better and decide if a century old principle in Quantum
Mechanics is violated or not.

jayz

On 29 Jan 2006 15:43:05 -0800, "jayz" wrote:

Ok. So a light ray is composed of numerous photons travelling in the
same
path.

There is no such thing as a "light ray". It is a geometrical construct,
useful for analysis. Whether you treat light as a wave or particle
phenomenon doesn't change this. A ray has no physicality.

In reality, each photon is in its own path; no two will be in exactly
the same one. You could certainly treat the path taken by any individual
photon as a ray from a geometrical analysis standpoint.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Chris L Peterson schrieb:

Ok. So a light ray is composed of numerous photons travelling in the
same
path.

There is no such thing as a "light ray". It is a geometrical construct,
useful for analysis. Whether you treat light as a wave or particle
phenomenon doesn't change this. A ray has no physicality.

In reality, each photon is in its own path; no two will be in exactly
the same one.

That is not right.
Photons are excitations of the electromagnetical field modes. Of course it
is possible, that a particular field mode contains multiple energy quanta
(photons). In fact, this is almost always the case, as it is quite
challenging to prepare Light states where the number of Energy quanta in a
particular mode is a well defined number (so called Fock states). Thermal
light states and coherent light coming from a laser do not have a well
defined number of energy quanta in them.

What you probably mean is, that a photon does not have to be localized. As
modes of the electromagnetic field can be pretty spread out in spacetime
(monochromatic plane wave modes have an infinite width and lenght), having
1 photon in such a mode does not tell you anything _where_ it is located.

Best regards,
Jürgen
--
GPG key:
http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?...n+Appel&op=get

Salmon Egg wrote:
On 1/29/06 4:49 AM, in article
, "jayz"
wrote:


Hi,

In a single airy disc, how many photons approximately could it be
composed of??

In a parallel light rays coming from distance point to the objective
lens, how many photon(s) are there and what's the distribution??

Basically. What is the relationship between photons and light rays
in telescope optics??

Thanks.

jayz


382,395,295,2116.43.

They more or less travel t6he same path.

Electromagnetic waves manifest themselves as photons when they interact
with a detector, be it film, ccd, photomultiplier, or the retina of an
eye. Wave descriptions are generally better for describing how light
energy propagates though space while photons are better for describing
how how light behaves in energy conversion. Both waves and photons are
correct but incomplete descriptions of the same phenomina.

I'm an engineer, not a physicist. This destinction may be simplistic or
dead wrong but it works for me.
--
Lou Boyd
Fairborn Observatory

On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 17:48:43 -0700, Jürgen Appel
wrote:

What you probably mean is, that a photon does not have to be localized.

I agree with that, but it isn't what I meant, which was that there is no
such thing as a "ray" consisting of a stream of photons, because no two
photons will be in exactly the same path. I suppose you could create
some definition of ray that included a non-zero width (radius), and the
resulting finite volume could be seen as containing a stream of photons.
But I can't think of any particularly useful reason for doing that.

My sense was that the OP was viewing a ray as if it were some sort of
physical entity.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com