special theory of relativity for photons

Yousif Albanay (1)

1 PRINTEMPS - Professions, institutions, temporalités

The photon mass is ordinarily assumed to be exactly zero. However, this is merely a theoretical assumption; there is no experimental evidence to indicate that the photon mass is identically zero. In contrast, there are various experimental methods that have been used to set upper limits on the photon mass. If there is any deviation from zero, it must be very small. Nevertheless, even a small nonzero value would have many consequences in many theories in modern physics. It would mean that we could treat the photon as a particle that is approximately analogous to an electron. Photon mass would imply that the famous ! is not a universal constant but instead depends on the photon energy, just as in the case of other particles within nonzero mass. In a related problem, we will study the Lorentz contraction of a rod using the Lorentz transformation equations. We will see how Lorentz transformations can demonstrate, remarkably, that under certain special conditions, length expansion is also possible! The aim of this study is combine all of these components - photon mass, length variation, and Doppler effect - to develop a complete special theory of relativity for the photon as a particle.

Mots clés: special theory of relativity; photons

Domaines: Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]

Yousif Albanay. special theory of relativity for photons. 2013. ⟨hal-00870223⟩