Photons inside a waveguide as massive particles

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that photons confined within a waveguide behave like massive particles, drawing parallels with de Broglie waves and proposing new ideas on the origin of mass beyond the Higgs mechanism.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analogy between guided photons and massive particles, offering a new perspective on photon mass and its quantum-mechanical description.

Findings

Guided photons can be modeled as free massive particles.

The behavior of guided photons parallels de Broglie matter waves.

Proposes alternative ideas on the origin of mass, inspired by zitterbewegung and effective rest mass.

Abstract

In the paper, we show that there exists a close analogy between the behavior of de Broglie matter waves and that of electromagnetic waves inside a hollow waveguide, such that the guided photons can be treated as free massive particles subject to a relativistic quantum-mechanical equation. Inspired by the effective rest mass of guided photons and the zitterbewegung phenomenon of the Dirac electron, at variance with the well-known Higgs mechanism we present some different heuristic ideas on the origin of mass.