Can a massless charged particles moving with the speed of light exist?

Asked Nov 19 '22 at 15:48

Active Nov 19 '22 at 17:33

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Consider a massless charged particle uniformly moving in vacuum at a constant velocity with the speed of light. The usual expressions for electric and magnetic fields give weird results in this case. Take electric field as an example — it would show that the field “collapses” into a plane perpendicular to the line of motion.

Usually “infinities” indicate a problem in the theory. So I wonder if such particles can exist theoretically? If I am not mistaken, there are no empirically known examples.

Is it the result of the assumption that the particle is truly a point? Maybe there are some quantum effects to “rescue”?

edited Nov 19 '22 at 17:32

Qmechanic

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asked Nov 19 '22 at 15:48

xaxa

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Does the charged particle have mass? – Jon Custer Nov 19 '22 at 15:54
@JonCuster no, a massless charged particle – xaxa Nov 19 '22 at 15:56
There are no known massless charged particles. – Jon Custer Nov 19 '22 at 15:59
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@JonCuster right, I mentioned it in my question. My question is can they exist theoretically? If yes then what EM they produce? – xaxa Nov 19 '22 at 16:00
I edited my question to add a note about masslessness of the particle – xaxa Nov 19 '22 at 16:41
Yes https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/715865/ – jensen paull Nov 19 '22 at 16:50
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Does this answer your question? Is this proof that massless objects cannot be charged? – John Rennie Nov 19 '22 at 16:52
@jensenpaull I'm sorry, the argument there is wrong because it's based on an incorrect assumption that $F=ma$ in relativistic case – xaxa Nov 19 '22 at 16:57

Can a massless charged particles moving with the speed of light exist?

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