Photons as solitons?

[KALSTER]

Simple question with a not so simple answer probably: Why can't photons be thought of as solitons? Assuming for a moment that there is some kind of a space-time medium, could a photon not be a soliton in such a setup? I have read something against it, which stated that there are no processes that could produce such a wave. For instance an electron giving up energy in the form of a photon does not oscillate in the right way or at all. Would such a solition produce the kind of effects one sees with the double slit experiment?

 

I would think that the idea of photons as solitons would be a straight forward idea to come up with, but I couldn't easily find anything relating to this idea on the internet (probably because I had been searching for "wave packet"). That makes we think that there is probably a pretty obvious reason that it fails. I am working from the premise that a space-time medium exists, but this is not the accepted model, so is this then the primary reason that it fails? Also, would a light beam made up of individual soliton-photons give the same result with the double slit experiment?

 

Here are two links I found that discusses the idea. HERE and HERE. They are both from ten or more years ago though, so how did they fail? The first one is just an abstract, but the second link is a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.

[maddog]

Simple question with a not so simple answer probably: Why can't photons be thought of as solitons?

The simplest answer is that light or in particle form (photon) does not require a medium.

Whereas, for solitons which are (at where I have seen them) in propagating in solids only.

Thus solitons require a medium to propagate in.

 

maddog

[sanctus]

Assuming for a moment that there is some kind of a space-time medium, could a photon not be a soliton in such a setup?

 

I think this is the main question: what would this medium be? Why couldn't we measure it so far?

I think the answers to your questions depend very strongly on how one defines this medium.

[KALSTER]

I think this is the main question: what would this medium be? Why couldn't we measure it so far?

I think the answers to your questions depend very strongly on how one defines this medium.

Ok. Let's just assume that the medium is a superfluid?

[Qfwfq]

A soliton is a special case of solution of the non-linear de Vries wave equation.

 

Electromagnetism in vacuo is linear to all practical purposes. The soliton waveform can also in principle be a solution of it but doesn't exhibit special properties. Indeed the special thing about the soliton is that, despite the non-linear equation, it evolves without showing the effects of dispersivity.

 

In some cases other than vacuum, it can make sense to consider solitonic EM waves; this was one of the classic experiments in 20th century physics that could be chosen for my 4th year lab at Physics.