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Photon Momentum

A particle of mass m moves though a viscous medium. (See Figure 4.) In this medium, if the particle moves with a velocity v, it experiences a drag force given by . is known as the relaxation time. If a particle moves through this medium without an external driving force, its velocity will decay exponentially to zero with a characteristic time according to . Essentially, the particle ``forgets'' what it had been doing more that a few relaxation times in the past.

 

In this problem, the particle is illuminated from the left and absorbs photons of wavelength at an average rate of I photons per unit time. As a result, the particle experiences an average force and is driven to the right at an average velocity <v>. Because the photons arrive randomly as discrete packets, the velocity of the particle is not steady and fluctuates about the average with fluctuations of typical size . Your task is to compute <v> and .





Prof. Tomas Alberto Arias
Thu Oct 12 19:22:57 EDT 1995