https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-015-3811-0
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Photons in a ball
1
Dipartimento di Fisica “Ettore Pancini”, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Via Cintia, 80126, Naples, Italy
2
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli, Via Cintia, 80126, Naples, Italy
* e-mail: mueck@na.infn.it
Received:
26
October
2015
Accepted:
25
November
2015
Published online:
11
December
2015
The electromagnetic field inside a spherical cavity of large radius R is considered in the presence of stationary charge and current densities. R provides infra-red regularisation while maintaining gauge invariance. The quantum ground state of physical photons forming the magnetic field is found to be a coherent state with a definite mean occupation number. The electric field, which is determined by the Gauss law constraint, is maintained by a minimum uncertainty coherent state, according to the projection operator approach to the quantisation of constrained systems. The mean occupation number of this state is proportional to the square of the total charge. The results confirm formulae obtained previously from a calculation with a finite photon mass for infra-red regularisation.
© The Author(s), 2015
