The Dispersion Relation of Massive Photons in Plasma: A Comment on “Bounding the Photon Mass with Ultrawide Bandwidth Pulsar Timing Data and Dedispersed Pulses of Fast Radio Bursts”
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The dispersion measures of fast radio bursts have been identified as a powerful tool for testing the zero-mass hypothesis of the photon. The classical approach treats the massive photon-induced and plasma-induced time delays as two separate phenomena. Recently, Y.-B. Wang et al. suggested that the joint influence of the nonzero photon mass and plasma effects should be considered, and proposed a revised time delay for massive photons propagating in a plasma medium, denoted as Δ t m γ ′ ∝ ν − 4 , which departures from the classical dispersion relation (∝ν −2). Here we discuss the derivation presented by Y.-B. Wang et al. and show that the classical dispersion relation remains valid based on Proca equations.
Source: Research Notes of the AAS
Authors: Bao Wang, Jun-Jie Wei
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4402291185