Probing the Photon Mass through the Electromagnetic Memory Effect
Abstract
Electromagnetic memory effect is the residual velocity (a kick) acquired by free charges following the passage of electromagnetic waves. We compute the electromagnetic memory effect in de Broglie-Proca theory for particle scattering in four dimensional Minkowski spacetime as a function of the photon mass, and show that it is suppressed by Yukawa decay compared to usual Maxwell electrodynamics. Therefore, we suggest that its experimental detection would place bounds on, or potentially exclude, the existence of non-zero photon mass.
Keywords
Electromagnetic Memory, de Broglie-Proca Equation, Massive Photon
References
- [1] Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger, Phys. Rev. Lett., 116 (2016) 061102.
- [2] Zel’dovich Ya. B., Polnarev A. G., Radiation of gravitational waves by a cluster of superdense stars, Sov. Astron., 18 (1974) 17 .
- [3] Christodoulou D., Nonlinear nature of gravitation and gravitational wave experiments, Phys. Rev. Lett., 67 (1991) 1486.
- [4] Garfinkle D., Hollands S., IshibashiA., Tolish A., Wald R.M., The Memory Effect for Particle Scattering in Even Spacetime Dimensions, Class. Quant. Grav., 34 (2017) 145015.
- [5] Satishchandran G., Wald R.M., Memory effect for particle scattering in odd spacetime dimensions, Phys. Rev. D, 97 (2018) 024036.
- [6] Strominger A., Zhiboedov A., Gravitational Memory, BMS Supertranslations and Soft Theorems, JHEP, 01 (2016) 086.
- [7] Pasterski S., Strominger A., Zhiboedov A., New Gravitational Memories, JHEP 12 (2016) 053.
- [8] Hollands S., Ishibashi A., Wald, R.M., BMS Supertranslations and Memory in Four and Higher Dimensions, Class. Quant. Grav., 34 (2017) 155005.
- [9] Tolish A., Wald R.M., Retarded Fields of Null Particles and the Memory Effect, Phys. Rev. D, 89 (2014) 064008.
- [10] Kilicarslan E., Tekin B., Graviton Mass and Memory, Eur. Phys. J. C, 79 (2019) 114.