Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Recollections of an Independent Thinker
- A Look Back: Early Applications of Maximum Entropy Estimation to Quantum Statistical Mechanics
- The Jaynes–Cummings Revival
- The Jaynes–Cummings Model and the One-Atom-Maser
- The Jaynes–Cummings Model is Alive and Well
- Self-Consistent Radiation Reaction in Quantum Optics – Jaynes' Influence and a New Example in Cavity QED
- Enhancing the Index of Refraction in a Nonabsorbing Medium: Phaseonium Versus a Mixture of Two-Level Atoms
- Ed Jaynes' Steak Dinner Problem II
- Source Theory of Vacuum Field Effects
- The Natural Line Shape
- An Operational Approach to Schrödinger's Cat
- The Classical Limit of an Atom
- Mutual Radiation Reaction in Spontaneous Emission
- A Model of Neutron Star Dynamics
- The Kinematic Origin of Complex Wave Functions
- On Radar Target Identification
- On the Difference in Means
- Bayesian Analysis, Model Selection and Prediction
- Bayesian Numerical Analysis
- Quantum Statistical Inference
- Application of the Maximum Entropy Principle to Nonlinear Systems Far from Equilibrium
- Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics
- A Backward Look to the Future
- Appendix: Vita and Bibliography of Edwin T. Jaynes
- Index
Source Theory of Vacuum Field Effects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Recollections of an Independent Thinker
- A Look Back: Early Applications of Maximum Entropy Estimation to Quantum Statistical Mechanics
- The Jaynes–Cummings Revival
- The Jaynes–Cummings Model and the One-Atom-Maser
- The Jaynes–Cummings Model is Alive and Well
- Self-Consistent Radiation Reaction in Quantum Optics – Jaynes' Influence and a New Example in Cavity QED
- Enhancing the Index of Refraction in a Nonabsorbing Medium: Phaseonium Versus a Mixture of Two-Level Atoms
- Ed Jaynes' Steak Dinner Problem II
- Source Theory of Vacuum Field Effects
- The Natural Line Shape
- An Operational Approach to Schrödinger's Cat
- The Classical Limit of an Atom
- Mutual Radiation Reaction in Spontaneous Emission
- A Model of Neutron Star Dynamics
- The Kinematic Origin of Complex Wave Functions
- On Radar Target Identification
- On the Difference in Means
- Bayesian Analysis, Model Selection and Prediction
- Bayesian Numerical Analysis
- Quantum Statistical Inference
- Application of the Maximum Entropy Principle to Nonlinear Systems Far from Equilibrium
- Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics
- A Backward Look to the Future
- Appendix: Vita and Bibliography of Edwin T. Jaynes
- Index
Summary
When you follow two separate chains of thought, Watson, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate the truth.
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disappearance of Lady Frances CarfaxABSTRACT. It is now well established that effects traditionally associated with vacuum electromagnetic field fluctuations can be described equally well in terms of source fields (radiation reaction). This remarkable reconciliation of two previously unconnected points of view, which was stimulated by Jaynes' neoclassical theory, is reviewed and explained in a general and simple way.
Background
The Jaynes-Cummings paper seems to have been the first to employ dressed states of two-state atoms in fields (Jaynes 1963). One result found in that paper is that semiclassical radiation theory could serve as an excellent approximation even under certain conditions where the average number of photons in the field is small. The accuracy of semiclassical theory paved the way to Jaynes' “neoclassical theory,” where even spontaneous emission was treated without field quantization (Jaynes 1972, Milonni 1976).
The neoclassical theory was a subject of much debate and misunderstanding in the 1970s. It turned out not to be so easy to dismiss it on experimental grounds.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Physics and ProbabilityEssays in Honor of Edwin T. Jaynes, pp. 91 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993