Monday, 15 June 2015

electromagnetic radiation - Does radio use virtual photons?


In radio communication each accelerated electron in the transmitter antenna interacts with an electron in the receiver antenna by exchanging a photon.


Is that photon always a virtual photon as described in the diagram below rather than a "real" photon?


enter image description here


As I understand it, Feynman's definition of a virtual photon in his book QED is any exchanged photon that does not appear in the initial or final conditions. Therefore by his definition radio works by using virtual photons.




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