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Measuring Photon Momentum

The quantum of EM radiation we call a photon has properties analogous to those of particles we can see, such as grains of sand. A photon interacts as a unit in collisions or when absorbed, rather than as an extensive wave. Massive quanta, like electrons, also act like macroscopic particles—something we expect, because they are the smallest units of matter. Particles carry momentum as well as energy. Despite photons having no mass, there has long been evidence that EM radiation carries momentum. (Maxwell and others who studied EM waves predicted that they would carry momentum.) It is now a well-established fact that photons do have momentum. In fact, photon momentum is suggested by the photoelectric effect, where photons knock electrons out of a substance. (Figure) shows macroscopic evidence of photon momentum.

(Figure) shows a comet with two prominent tails. What most people do not know about the tails is that they always point away from the Sun rather than trailing behind the comet (like the tail of Bo Peep’s sheep). Comet tails are composed of gases and dust evaporated from the body of the comet and ionized gas. The dust particles recoil away from the Sun when photons scatter from them. Evidently, photons carry momentum in the direction of their motion (away from the Sun), and some of this momentum is transferred to dust particles in collisions. Gas atoms and molecules in the blue tail are most affected by other particles of radiation, such as protons and electrons emanating from the Sun, rather than by the momentum of photons.

Momentum is conserved in quantum mechanics just as it is in relativity and classical physics. Some of the earliest direct experimental evidence of this came from scattering of x-ray photons by electrons in substances, named Compton scattering after the American physicist Arthur H. Compton (1892–1962). Around 1923, Compton observed that x rays scattered from materials had a decreased energy and correctly analyzed this as being due to the scattering of photons from electrons. This phenomenon could be handled as a collision between two particles—a photon and an electron at rest in the material. Energy and momentum are conserved in the collision. (See (Figure)) He won a Nobel Prize in 1929 for the discovery of this scattering, now called the Compton effect, because it helped prove that photon momentum is given by

where \(h\) is Planck’s constant and \(\lambda \) is the photon wavelength. (Note that relativistic momentum given as \(p=\gamma \text{mu}\) is valid only for particles having mass.)

We can see that photon momentum is small, since \(p=h/\lambda \) and \(h\) is very small. It is for this reason that we do not ordinarily observe photon momentum. Our mirrors do not recoil when light reflects from them (except perhaps in cartoons). Compton saw the effects of photon momentum because he was observing x rays, which have a small wavelength and a relatively large momentum, interacting with the lightest of particles, the electron.

Relativistic Photon Momentum

There is a relationship between photon momentum \(p\) and photon energy \(E\) that is consistent with the relation given previously for the relativistic total energy of a particle as \({E}^{2}=\left(\text{pc}{\right)}^{2}+\left(\text{mc}{\right)}^{2}\). We know \(m\) is zero for a photon, but \(p\) is not, so that \({E}^{2}=\left(\text{pc}{\right)}^{2}+\left(\text{mc}{\right)}^{2}\) becomes

or

To check the validity of this relation, note that \(E=\text{hc}/\lambda \) for a photon. Substituting this into \(p=E/c\) yields

as determined experimentally and discussed above. Thus, \(p=E/c\) is equivalent to Compton’s result \(p=h/\lambda \). For a further verification of the relationship between photon energy and momentum, see (Figure).