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Zusatztext The treatment is both thorough and lucid. ... This volume will become a standard work for physicists interested in the field. Klappentext This unique book presents a unified, in-depth study of phenomena in photon-matter interactions over a range of many orders of energy. It provides a thorough treatment of relativistic quantum electrodynamics from the quantum field theoretic approach, together with non-relativistic theory inboth confined and unconfined geometries. The predictions of QED have been verified to a greater accuracy than any other physical theory. Moreover QED is a paradigm for other gauge theories, and it is presented in such a way that the generalization to other gauge theories is natural. Gauge andPoincare symmetry properties and the non-existence of a photon wave function are thoroughly discussed. Starting from the Dirac equation, the non-relativistic interaction of the electron with the electromagnetic field is derived as an effective Hamiltonian of multipole expansions. Succeedingchapters fully develop relativistic QED and quantum optics. The limitations of QED and the necessity of electroweak theory and quantum chromodynamics are also discussed, and the final chapters are devoted to quantum optics inside cavities, concluding with a study of highly non-classical states ofthe light field such as photon number, squeezed and two photon entangled states. The book includes worked examples and exercises. In addition to its wide usefulness for theoretical physicists, this volume will help workers in quantum optics to gain a deeper understanding of the foundations of theirsubject, and field theorists will find concrete examples of open systems, which are beginning to influence their basic approaches. Zusammenfassung Covers phenomena in photon-matter interactions over a range of many orders in energy. A thorough treatment of relativistic quantum electrodynamics and more general gauge theories is given, and their connections with quantum optics and atomic physics are explored. The theory is extended to include open systems. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1.: Quantization of the free Maxwell field, canonical and functional approaches 2.: The photon as a particle: the general one-photon state 3.: Electron-photon and matter-photon interactions: relativistic and non-relativistic cases 4.: Calculational methods for quantum electrodynamics 5.: Quantum electrodynamic processes 6.: Extensions of quantum electrodynamics 7.: Open systems 8.: Instabilities and chaos in quantum optics: semi-classical theory 9.: Fokker-Planck equations: quantum fluctuations 10.: Non-classical light Appendix 1. Basic algebra Appendix 2. Topological structures Appendix 3. Tensors and invariances in relativity Appendix 4. Stochastic differential equations References Index ...
