Uncertainty relation for photons

Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Apr 6;108(14):140401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.140401. Epub 2012 Apr 3.

Abstract

The uncertainty relation for the photons in three dimensions that overcomes the difficulties caused by the nonexistence of the photon position operator is derived in quantum electrodynamics. The photon energy density plays the role of the probability density in configuration space. It is shown that the measure of the spatial extension based on the energy distribution in space leads to an inequality that is a natural counterpart of the standard Heisenberg relation. The equation satisfied by the photon wave function in momentum space which saturates the uncertainty relations has the form of the Schrödinger equation in coordinate space in the presence of electric and magnetic charges.