Fundamental Spacetime Representations of Quantum Antenna Systems

Abstract

We utilize relativistic quantum mechanics to develop general quantum field-theoretic foundations suitable for understanding, analyzing, and designing generic quantum antennas for potential use in secure quantum communication systems and other applications. Quantum antennas are approached here as abstract source systems capable of producing what we dub “quantum radiation.” We work from within a generic relativistic framework, whereby the quantum antenna system is modeled in terms of a fundamental quantum spacetime field. After developing a framework explaining how quantum radiation can be understood using the methods of perturbative relativistic quantum field theory (QFT), we investigate in depth the problem of quantum radiation by a controlled abstract source functions. We illustrate the theory in the case of the neutral Klein-Gordon linear quantum antenna, outlining general methods for the construction of the Green’s function of a source—receiver quantum antenna system, the latter being useful for the computation of various candidate angular quantum radiation directivity and gain patterns analogous to the corresponding concepts in classical antenna theory. We anticipate that the proposed formalism may be extended to deal with a large spectrum of other possible controlled emission types for quantum communications applications, including, for example, the production of scalar, fermionic, and bosonic particles, where each could be massless or massive. Therefore, our goal is to extend the idea of antenna beyond electromagnetic waves, where now our proposed QFT-based concept of a quantum antenna system could be used to explore scenarios of controlled radiation of any type of relativistic particles, i.e., effectively transcending the well-known case of photonic systems through the deployment of novel non-standard quantum information transmission carriers such as massive photons, spin-1/2 particles, gravitons, antiparticles, higher spin particles, and so on.