Can a photon be divided?

The photon cannot be split as one can split a nucleus. As it has zero mass it cannot decay. But it can interact with another particle lose part of its energy and thus change wavelength. It can be transmuted.

What does a photon split into?

A photon can be separated into mass an matter, but each of the two quantum units is in one ‘piece’. A high energy photon could split into a proton, and an anti proton. It could also split into a electron, and a positron.

Can a photon decay into two photons?

In quantum mechanics, the Landau–Yang theorem is a selection rule for particles that decay into two on-shell photons. The theorem states that a massive particle with spin 1 cannot decay into two photons.

Can photons be different sizes?

While photons don’t have a physical diameter, and can be treated as point particles, their quantum behavior gives them a probabilistic size. Under this definition there is no absolute “size” to a photon. The cross section also depends upon the energy of the photon and things like its polarization.

Can a photon hit another photon?

Since light itself does not have electric charge, one photon cannot directly interact with another photon. Instead, they just pass right through each other without being affected. Because they are bosons and because they carry no electric charge, one photon cannot directly bounce off another photon.

Is it possible to split a photon into two photons?

Edit: Intrigued by the other answers I searched and found that within special crystals “splits” can happen, if one defines as a split that there can come out two photons whose energy adds up to the original energy of the photon. So in a collective crystal photon interaction there exists such a probability.

Can a photon with a zero rest mass be split?

The answer somewhat depends on how you define “splitting” of a particle with a zero rest mass. Since it can never be stopped, there is always kinetic energy in a photon which can be converted into other particles. If this counts as “splitting” then the photon can be split e.g., into more photons in a parametric down-conversion.

Can a photon be considered a pure energy?

However, if such excess energy conversion into matter does not count as splitting, then the answer is no. In this (rather loose) sense once can say that a photon is “pure energy”. Share Cite Improve this answer