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In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. [1] [2] [3] In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved. [2]
In Dirac's theory the fields are quantized for the first time and it is also the first time that the Planck constant enters the expressions. In his original work, Dirac took the phases of the different electromagnetic modes ( Fourier components of the field) and the mode energies as dynamic variables to quantize (i.e., he reinterpreted them as ...
As an example, quantum electrodynamics contains a Dirac field ψ representing the electron field and a vector field A μ representing the electromagnetic field (photon field). (Despite its name, the quantum electromagnetic "field" actually corresponds to the classical electromagnetic four-potential , rather than the classical electric and ...
The electromagnetic field is described by classical electrodynamics, an example of a classical field theory. This theory describes many macroscopic physical phenomena accurately. [6] However, it was unable to explain the photoelectric effect and atomic absorption spectroscopy, experiments at the atomic scale.
The theory provides a description of electromagnetic phenomena whenever the relevant length scales and field strengths are large enough that quantum mechanical effects are negligible. For small distances and low field strengths, such interactions are better described by quantum electrodynamics which is a quantum field theory.
Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism describes the interaction of charged matter with the electromagnetic field. The first formulation of this field theory used vector fields to describe the electric and magnetic fields. With the advent of special relativity, a more complete formulation using tensor fields was found. Instead of using two vector ...
Moreover, within each category (scalar, vector, tensor), a field can be either a classical field or a quantum field, depending on whether it is characterized by numbers or quantum operators respectively. In this theory an equivalent representation of field is a field particle, for instance a boson. [10]
It is a procedure for constructing quantum mechanics from classical mechanics. A generalization involving infinite degrees of freedom is field quantization, as in the "quantization of the electromagnetic field", referring to photons as field "quanta" (for instance as light quanta).