Evidence from the special relativity and blackbody radiation theories for the existence of photons possessing zero kinetic energy

Abstract

The traditional interpretation of radiative emission and absorption asserts that photons are created and annihilated in such processes. A Gedanken experiment is considered in which kinetic energy from observed photons is systematically removed until a limit of zero is reached. With the help of the relativistic Doppler effect, it is shown that even for infinitesimally small kinetic energies the photons continue to exist, since in other interial systems they will be observed to have a much higher energy/frequency falling in an easily detectable range. An alternative explanation for absorption and emission processes can be formulated on this basis in terms of real photons with exactly zero kinetic energy being present before or after radiative interactions. Bolstering this hypothesis is the fact that the statistical mechanical treatment of photons interacting with oscillators in blackbody radiation theory predicts an infinite density of photons of this energy, both in the original Planck formulation employing Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics and in the subsequent Bose-Einstein description. The Bohr relation, E = hv, also makes clear that it is not possible to observe photons in this E = 0 state because a null frequency (or infinite wavelength) cannot be observed, so no contradiction results on this basis. It is pointed out that the Einstein mass dilation formula indicates that photons with zero kinetic energy can move with speeds less than c, down to and including a value of zero. It can also be shown that ordinary conservation of energy/momentum laws lead to the prediction of quantization phenomena in absorption and radiation processes, because of the much smaller mass of photons vis-à-vis atoms. These considerations demonstrate that the E = 0 state is greatly preferred as the product of absorption because of the requirement to have the interaction occur in a relatively narrow region of space-time. There is thus strong evidence that photons are not created and annihilated in radiative processes but simply have their kinetic energy changed either to or from a zero value. Accordingly, a very high density of zero-energy photons is expected to exist uniformly throughout the universe. Finally, this development suggests that one should subject the creation-annihilation hypothesis to careful scrutiny in other areas of physics as well.