Sure, electron in particular and  matter in general is made up of EM fields governed by Maxwell's and Dirac equations.  

Dear Richard,

The photon is the quanta of the electromagnetic field produced by a moving electric charge (field source). How is it possible that the photon is electrically charged?

Ion

The charge (of the electron) is its property to emit virtual photons. The photon can't do this.

Dear Ion, Mohamed and Mohammad,

    Thank you for your comments and questions. I am proposing a second variety of photon that IS charged and forms the electron. It is not a classical particle. A summary article about this is at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281322004_The_electron_is_a_helically-circulating_spin-12_charged_photon_generating_the_de_Broglie_wavelength while the detailed article is at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281322081_Electrons_are_spin_12_charged_photons_generating_the_de_Broglie_wavelength . 

   I hope these will answer some of your questions and raise others.

Research The electron is a helically-circulating spin-1/2 charged pho...

Research Electrons are spin 1/2 charged photons generating the de Bro...

 Hello Ilian,

But a charged photon, which is a proposed different variety of photon, could emit virtual photons.

Dear Richard!

This qustion of yours is interesting an also your toughts behind.

In my opinion photons on the one hand and electrons/positrons on the other hand have a close relationship, which become visible e.g. on pair-production and annihilation. Both are fundamental particles on the baisc level of matter. ---

Mohamed said right: "I mean if you know this about any thing classical then you basicaly know nothing." and I would add: We use too much mathematics and have too little knowledge. With this in mind your question is a step to change theories. You'll have not only friends - you understand me?

best wishes

Hans

 Hello Hans!

 Thank you for you comments and friendly support. 

I think the spin 1/2 charged photon approach will also be helpful in understanding electron-positron pair production from a single incoming photon near a nucleus. A single photon with spin 1 transforms  (near a nucleus to absorb some momentum) into two spin 1/2 photons, one positively and one negatively charged. These are the positron and the electron. The math is very simple.

best wishes

Richard

Dear Richard,

Yes! It is. The electron presents itselfs the helically-circulating spin-1/2 photon, localized on the Compton's wavelength. It is the standing wave circularly polarized (or, the wave interference that is the same.) The "charge" arouses by the secondary interferencial peaks and the mass aroused by the main peak. The 1/2 spin, the magnetic moment also are in full agreement. De Broglie's wave arises and absorbs back (as in QED) as consequence of movement of the Compton's standing wave (that is the electron) You can find details from below, If you wish spend your time: http://vixra.org/author/george_kirakosyan

Best Regards 

Hello George,

   Thank you very much for writing and for your thoughtful comments. I appreciate very much your criticisms of the dogmatic direction of modern physics (as other critics such as Lee Smolin have described) and your proposed solutions, as you express in your article "Physics that may be realistic" at http://vixra.org/abs/1504.0066 and I recommend to the others here to read this article, as well as to look through your other articles on vixra which I find very insightful and relevant to the present question of how to understand and describe the electron.

with best wishes,

 Richard

Richard, when you are referring to Dirac you are probably thinking of the concept of Zitterbewegung(?). It seems to be an abandoned idea, which to my knowledge have led absolutely nowhere.

Whatever connection you happen to find between the photon and the electron (and positron?), you shouldn't call the the electron a spin-1/2 photon. That would be a misnomer like the mu-"meson".

Unless, of course, you want to follow Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

Hello Kåre,

  Thanks your for your comments. Yes, the concept of an electron's zitterbewegung  hasn't gone anywhere experimentally yet. But it is associated with the amplitude hbar/2mc (which corresponds to the zitterbewegung frequency) from the Dirac equation, and also with Dirac's claim that the electron travels at the speed of light but can only be observed traveling at less than the speed of light because of the small amplitude and high frequency of its motion. I developed Dirac's claim into a possible model of the electron as a charged photon moving helically at the speed of light with a longitudinal speed equal to the speed of the observed electron (which is less than the speed of light). In doing this I found that this circulating charged photon would have a wavelength equal to the Compton wavelength h/mc divided by gamma -- h/(gamma mc) -- from which the electron's de Broglie wavelength -- h/(gamma mv) -- is derived very easily from the helical model. This approach also generates from this circulating charged photon the quantum wave function of a free electron with its phase velocity c^2/v. So I think that I'm on to something that may be important. I call the charged helically-circulating light-speed spin-1/2 photon-like object a charged spin-1/2 photon because it has the photon's properties c=f lambda, E=hf and p=h/lambda.

  Yes, I'm proposing that photons come in two varieties, spin 1 uncharged and spin-1/2 electrically charged, the latter having been overlooked until now perhaps because de Broglie's original concept of the electron's "matter wave" kept people thinking that the electron is composed of matter rather than light.

     with best wishes,

         Richard

I am happy to see that you try to check the experimental predictions of your model. As you have found the magnetic moment is a factor 2 off. I think you will have a hard time repairing that -- not to speak of the 10 additional decimals predicted (and experimentally verified) by the QED corrections.

You have a quite detailed geometric picture of the electron: Which cross-section for electron-electron scattering does this imply, and how does it compare with the Möller cross-section?

Your model has some similarity with Kaluza-Klein models (in which the rotation part of the motion with be in a 4th cyclic spatial dimension).

The idea that the electron is composed of light have not been overlooked; that is the essential point of the Weizacker-Williams approximation. And more usefully (due to the larger coupling constant) in quark-gluon models, where one talk about the gluon content of a quark and the quark-antiquark content of a gluon. Mathematically described by f.i. the Altarelli-Parisi equations.

Hello Kåre,

Thanks for your further comments. I overcame this factor of 2 for the electron’s magnetic moment in a previous charged photon model for a stationary electron, but it requires a helically circulating charged photon model that is internally transluminal and whose helical radius I could vary to produce the electron's approximate magnetic moment, the Bohr magneton ehbar/2m. I also then set this radius slightly larger to get the QED 10 digit accuracy value for the electron’s magnetic moment, but that's just playing with numbers. You can read about this at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259461313_TRANSLUMINAL_ENERGY_QUANTUM_MODELS_OF_THE_PHOTON_AND_THE_ELECTRON .

As for the electron’s high energy electron scattering size, my generic charged photon model predicts that at electron energy 29 GeV the radius of the charged photon’s helical trajectory is R= Ro/(gamma^2)=  6.0 x 10^-23 m, much lower than the experimental value at 29 GeV of less than about 10^-18 m,   where Ro = hbar/2mc = 1.93 x 10^-13 m is the Dirac amplitude.

But as I said previously, the charged photon model is a generic model and requires the incorporation of a more detailed photon model probably containing electric charge distribution, electric fields etc.  Such a more detailed model would likely raise the relativistic e-e scattering size of the total charged photon model of the electron to the experimental value at 29 GeV of less than 10^-18 m if its radius is about R=Ro/gamma not Ro/(gamma^2) as in my generic charged photon model’s helical trajectory radius.

An ultrarelativistic electron has electric and magnetic fields almost identical to those of a packet of real photons, in the Weizacker-Williams approximation, as I read about it. This suggests that the electron might be composed of light, as you suggest. But the electron is charged and normal photons are not, so there is still a need for a charged photon to fully describe the electron as being composed of light.

all the best,

    Richard

Data Transluminal-Energy Quantum Models of the Photon and the Electron

Dear Richard, your approach is OK (I already welcomed it above!)

You says however:  //Yes, I'm proposing that photons come in two varieties, spin 1 uncharged and spin-1/2 electrically charged,//  I am very sorry, it is not necessary supposition of a hypothetical "charged" photon, with 1/2 spin to build the electron. Matter is, the "charge" (or, the static electric field),  the static magnetic field (or, we can call it "magnetic  charge", if desire), the rest mass and spin 1/2 aroused as consequence of localization of the "normal" photon (γ quanta with S=1, q=0), in agree with conservation laws. It corresponds to actual transformation  γ →  e- +  e+  (we just must take care here that one photon cannot generate one particle only, but two or, more - in agree to conservation laws only 

Regards,

George    

Hello George,

I am very much enjoying reading your very interesting articles on ResearchGate and vixra in relation to attempting to bring back a realistic approach to understanding quantum physics, and wish you success.

I agree that for an electron and positron, both the rest mass and electric charge seem to be a consequence of the increased localization of the normal uncharged spin 1 photon in the process of electron-positron production. But in this process of localization, the spin 1 photon is converted (in electron-positron production ) into 2 spin-1/2 charged photons. There is no spin 1 photon in an electron or positron in my opinion--it has become a charged spin-1/2 photon for both the electron and the positron. The electron and positron keep their spin 1/2 even at highly relativistic velocities. So the charged photon composing the electron must also have and keep spin 1/2 both at low velocities and at highly relativistic velocities (in fact at all its velocities).

Mass is not the same as charge, either as static electric field or static magnetic field. The electron, muon and tau all have the same charge but different masses. The double looping helical motion of the charged spin 1/2 photon in my model seems to be responsible (in my opinion) for both the rest mass and the electric charge of the electron (the charged photon forming the electron) and also for the positron.

  Richard

Hi  Richard,

I just will concentrate on this important point. You says:

// Mass is not the same as charge, either as static electric field or static magnetic field. The electron, muon and tau all have the same charge but different masses.//

The matter is, the "charge" really is impossible to compare with the "mass" as these are different concepts. We can compare their energies only. The energy of charge defines by charge (constant) & by its spatial concentration (variable). Thus, to know the energy of charge we must know first the size of particle. Then we can see that energies relation (el.mag/mass)  becomes strongly determined by fundamental fine structure constant  a=1/137.  I show in my works that it (a) exactly coincides with the wave interferential redistribution relation. Thus, we get; the photon becomes localized (wave interference) on its wavelength, its energy becomes distributed on the main peak and on the secondaries. The first we "see" as particle mass, the seconds we see as the static fields (the el & mag "charges" actually are ours creation!)  With the spin, and with all known properties of particles everything becomes right. Al this narrated in my works if you have time.

Regards

George

For a "trapped photon" view of the electron, see Section1 or www.tachyonmodel.com.

 Hello Ernst,

    I'm very pleased that you wrote. First I want to congratulate you on your work in modeling the electron as a trapped photon. You've been a real pioneer in this area. Several other researchers including myself have been working with similar models, so I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. I also read about your Institute for Basic Research and its international history and was very impressed. Is the Institute very active these days? Also I appreciated your stories on your website about your early experimental researches. I hope we can get better acquainted and compare our research ideas about modeling the electron. I particularly appreciated your derivation of the de Broglie wavelength from your model using wavelets from the circulating photon.

     all the best,

            Richard

Richard:

First of all, my apologies for being so remiss in replying, but I have had some work and family issues to deal with that have totally consumed my time.

In any case, thank you for your very kind comments.

As to the Institute for Basic research, I believe its primary function these days is to publish the Hadronic Journal.  I am a long distance member, being located in the Boston area at the moment, so my knowledge of the daily activity is somewhat limited, so I defer to Ruggero Santilli for their current research activities.

But I agree with you in that  think would be most helpful if we can swap ideas.  That is be best way for science to progress, namely to compare notes and ideas.  Most of mine are summarized on my web site. at this time  If you don't have a web site as yet, I would encourage you to put one together so you can summarize and air your ideas in public.

My very best regards,

Ernst Wall

Hello Ernst,

   Thank you for your reply. Yes I hope we can compare notes. A collection of my relevant articles is at researchgate at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Gauthier2/publications 

I have been reading about Ruggero Santilli's work. I found an excerpt from one of his books "Isodual Theory of Antimatter" at https://books.google.com/books?id=T43ZoeIan64C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false  and read his open letter to  the Chairman, Nobel Committee for Physics, Theoretical Physics Department describing his work and the problems he has faced, at http://www.scientificethics.org/ir00007.htm, and a webpage on his efforts to oppose scientific fraud,  at http://www.scientificethics.org/IlGrandeGrido.htm . 

with best wishes,

      Richard

Thank you Richard, I will checkout  his work, I have long admired the work that you have been doing.  Thanks again for keeping me updated.  Best wishes, Ernest

Richard:

I just downloaded some of your work.  It seems extensive.

As to the spin 1/2 of the electron, its derivation, if you want to call it that, is trivial.  See Eqs. 1.6 - 1-8 of my web page. (www.tachyonmodel.com).

Richard:

I note your are also trying to reconcile your model with the Dirac and Schrodinger equations.  That is one of my goals, but I have a few things to do before I get there.

Hello Ernst,

Thanks for your note. Your electron model with circumference 1 Compton wavelength h/mc and radius hbar/mc generates the correct Dirac magnetic moment of one Bohr magneton, but the associated angular momentum or spin of this model is 1 hbar. You try to bring your electron model's spin down to 1/2 hbar by a kind of averaging process, comparing the electron to a rotating rigid flat disk. But for me that is not an acceptable derivation of the spin 1/2 of an election since it is not a rotating rigid charged disk. This is I think a serious weakness of your model.

with best wishes,

  Richard 

It is hard to disagree with that.  I must admit I am not comfortable with it because it is so trivial.  Nonetheless, I think I have a possible solution to the problem, I just have to work it out  Bottom line:  I have a simple solution, I have to make it more complicated.

 Hi, Richard:

You might also want to consider expanding your ideas to the proton.  I took a stab at it by simply calculating its radius from its magnetic moment.  However, the mass energy derived from was about 1/3 that of the actual value.  (This is listed in Section 5 of my web page as one of a number of unresolved issues.)

The son of a friend who is currently working on a post doc considers a proton to be a bag of quarks with no possibilities of it being anything else, but that apparently does not explain the magnetic moment.

On the positive side, however, this proton leads to the Yukawa-like deuteron model of Section 4 whose electrostatic binding energy of 2.444 MeV is more than enough to hold it together.  Yes, this would cause outrage among nuclear theorists to say the least! However, they apparently never considered the effect of charge on the binding energy.  In my nuclear theory courses back in the early 1960s, it was assumed to be uniformly distributed throughout the nucleus and it was also a neutron and a proton held together by a highly nonlinear nuclear force, so the charge made no contribution to the binding energy.

Finally, of course, there is the meson model of Section 2 which provides most of the mesons below 4076 MeV to within a relatively few percent by using a revolving pion. Again, a trapped photon with a very small magetic modment that will outrage the pion theorists who consider it to be a spin 0 particle. This was not something I was looking for, and it was only after I had published one of the energy levels in a table in hadron paper that I realized it was a meson. i.e., I blundered into it.

The bottom line to this is that all of these indicate ( but do not prove) that all particles are really trapped photons, so you might find all particles to be fertile ground for your ideas.

Best regards,

Ernst Wall