Effectively massive photons within Abelian Higgs galaxies

Abstract

AbstractWe demonstrate that photons emitted by spiral galaxies become effectively massive, if the latter are treated as macroscopic Abelian Higgs topological solitons. The rest mass of a photon is shown to be proportional to the squared amplitude of the Higgs field distribution representing a ‘background’ static cylindrically symmetric magnetic vorto‐source (‐sink). Because the amplitude increases in a monotonous fashion from zero at the center of a spiral to a fixed non‐zero value at its outer boundary, the rest mass (group velocity) of photons emitted at shorter distances from the galaxy' s center is smaller (greater) when compared to that of photons originating at larger distances. A rough estimate shows that for a spiral with a diameter of 60 kpc the maximum attainable mass of photon is of the order of 10−60 g.