The zero point field in low light level experiments

Abstract

The existence of the zero point electromagnetic field in the dark is a trivial property of classical electromagnetism. Splitting the total, genuine electromagnetic field into the sum of a conventional field and a zero point field is physically meaningless. If a receiver attenuates the genuine field down to a zero conventional field, it remains a zero point field having the coherence and the phase of the conventional field, and vice-versa for the amplification of the zero point field by a source. Nonlinear optical effects must be written using the genuine field, so that at low light levels they become linear in relation to the conventional field. The result of the interpretation of all observations, even at low light levels, is exactly the same in quantum electrodynamics and in the semi-classical theory. The zero point field is stochastic only far from the sources and the receivers; elsewhere, it is shaped by matter, it may be studied through fields visible before an absorption or after an amplification. Two examples are given : the computation of fourth order interferences and the use of the impulsive stimulated Raman scattering with ordinary incoherent light in astrophysics.