Can light create sound?

Question

High-schooler alert, be patient.

If we consider a Bohr Model of an atom used for introduction to atomic physics with a nucleus in the centre and electrons "flying" around it (no waves), then how does it "look" like when light passes through (when there is no-little absorption and scattering by electrons)?

If we imagine light as particles-asteroids flying through our atom-planet, than through interactions between electric fields, electrons have to experience a force? Or if we look from the perspective of light "flying" beside an atom, does it create (almost infinitesimal) force on that atom that can propagate through that medium?

Consider light to be of a monochromatic source and an atom to be at the top of a glass medium.

Does the hoard of photons leave electrons twirling and "jiggling" around an atom with more rapid speeds?

Answer 1

Yes, but not quite in the way you are thinking. The Bohr model isn't accurate and isn't a good way to think about it.

A photon is a particle of light. It carries energy and momentum. When it hits an atom, it can be absorbed. This adds energy to the atom, kicking it up to an excited state. It adds momentum to the atom, making it recoil.

It the atom is bound to a crystal lattice, the recoil can generate a wave that propagates through the lattice. This is called a phonon. It is a sound wave, though usually at a frequency way above human hearing.

Answer 2

If you focus a high-powered laser pulse to a point in air, it makes a nice "snap" sound. One way to understand this is that low intensity, light only interacts with matter one photon at a time. Visible light photons interact weakly with air molecules: they don't have enough energy to excite them. But at high intensity, at the focus, two or more photons can transfer their combined energy to a molecule and ionize it. Do this to a bunch of molecules and the result is an expanding hot plasma ball, and thus a sound.

Answer 3

Indeed, absorption of light by solids may be mediated by emission of phonons, i.e., sound waves in crystal.

Another related process is Mandelstam-Brillouin scatteirng, which is similar to Raman scattering, but the scattering occurs between light and sound/polarization/magnetic waves in solids, with scattered light having different energy - this is closely related to Raman scattering from atoms (in fact Mandelstam and co-workers also discovered Raman scattering, but were a few days later than Raman to publicize their results - the year was 1928.)

This does not happen for sound waves in air, since those are essentially thermodynamic, resulting from pressure changes mediated by many random collisions between atoms, while absorption of light occurs by a single atom, on much shorter time- and length-scales.

Related:
Are there phonons in air?
Is sound a classical mechanic phenomenon or is it a quantum effect?

Answer 4

Slightly unfocused, your doubts are scattered haywire. Moreover, your photon + Bohr theory makes modern physics coexist with classical physics at the quantum level, which is a conflict. Yet if we must answer yours, here's how I place it.
If light is a particle with no mass, electrons and nucleons are individually highly quantized (Discrete, not continuous or wave-like, position as a function of time can be properly traced), then yes they are partly classical (not in reality, which includes wave nature). A star-system-like configuration.

1. Can light create sound? Can only transfer energy, directly dependent on frequency and intensity. Let some trillion such photons hit electrons and nucleons of a set of atoms. You want to compare atom ≡ star system, photon≡ comets. Okay. But what happens when photon hits electrons, etc which all have mass? Let us bring in EM theory, which says that Photons are themselves waves in the EM field, and can interact with any mass only if it has its own EM field, e.g. electron and protons but not neutral Neutrons (unless you see advanced quantum). Interactions between photon and electrons / protons could cause: Reflections, absorption, refraction. What we want is absorption. (Because reflection and refraction does not transfer the energy) This causes: Transfer of energy of photon into Electron / proton. This leads to increase in Kinetic energy of e, what we call thermal energy. Now electrons and protons might get excited sufficiently enough to get kicked out of the atom. We find: (i) electron atom collision, (ii) electron electron collision (delocalised ones) but both are not enough to produce sound, which is too feeble. To produce audible sound the cause is (iii) atom atom collision. Where did atoms get KE? From KE of e and p. Thus light can cause sound but not per se. This underlies a very important concept: Sound is produced by massive particles not massless ones; sound is organised pressure waves of massive particles. But practically, photons do not have so much energy unless Highly concentrated, e.g., convection currents (heating over heat), solar furnaces, even your magnifying lens can burn a piece, but the sounds are very low compared to 30 decibels.

2. If we forget than photons can only interact via EM fields, and talk about some other way like asteroids collide with earth, then that is meaningless, due to definitions of photon. Photons cannot interact Without EM field unless it's deeply quantum mechanics.

3. Jiggling of electrons lead to sounds? Actually refinement is from the non-classical pov which says that electrons are rather point like, jiggling means energised Electrostatic field, which will interact with nearby electrons (which are also nothing but fields with some mass), leading to electron-electron repulsion. This kicks out the energised electron, it can then excited other atoms. Thats where a tiny sound is produced. If you burn a paper with sunlight, or if you send a -200° C box towards sun's surface, the box will expand so fast that a lot of sound is produced— due to photons in large numbers exciting the atoms by interacting with electrons. Atom-atom collision (basically coulomb repulsion and pauli exclusion) is thus created. The wave of atomic vibration that mediates or carries the mechanical force as repulsion from atom to atom is called a phonon, analogous to photon.