Skaar Models Photon Split That Could Spawn Infinite Photons
Johannes Skaar modeled what happens when a photon reaches a mirror and its front half bounces back before the mirror is removed. The result is not a clean split at all. The quantum equations produce a messy spread of outcomes, including several photons, a bunch of photons, or even an infinity of light particles if the mirror disappears infinitely fast.
Johannes Skaar and the Mirror
Skaar, a theoretical physicist at the University of Oslo in Norway, set up a scenario in which the back half of the light wave passes through after the mirror is pulled away. He said, “This is a bit strange,” which is the right reaction to a model that turns a simple split into a branching set of photon counts.
The paper was accepted to Physical Review Letters. That gives the work a formal outlet in the field, even though the setup reads like a thought experiment designed to stress-test the math rather than a lab procedure ready for routine use.
Daniele Faccio Reacts
Daniele Faccio, a physicist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, first called the study nonsense. He changed his view after reading it and said, “Then you read it, and I enjoyed it,” followed by, “The technique is legit.”
Faccio also said, “I’m going to speculate wildly here,” before pointing to sensing and measuring work that uses photons. He added, “it might matter because there are funky things that people do with [photons] for sensing and measuring.”
From One Photon to Many
The core model says disturbing a vacuum can knock new photons loose. The moving mirror supplies the energy, and that energy can spawn new light particles. From one viewpoint, someone seeing both sides of the mirror at once could get “up to bajillions of photons.” From one side only, the observer would see either a single photon or a vacuum.
Skaar said that if the mirror is removed more slowly, “you end up with a possibility of several photons, or a bunch of photons.” If the mirror is removed infinitely fast, the model says the count goes all the way to an infinity of light particles.
The unsettled part is the next step. Skaar hopes to test what happens if other wave-like fundamental particles, such as electrons, are severed, which would move this from a photon puzzle toward a broader question about matter that behaves like a wave.
