Exploring Photon Mass Upper Limits in Cylindrical Dielectric

The conception of the photon as a massless particle has been a cornerstone of modern physics for decades. Conventional local experiments for establishing limits on the photon mass typically use concentric conductors, exploiting the system’s radial symmetry in modeling. By directly measuring the electric potential difference between the conductors, researchers have been able to derive an upper limit around 10−50 kg for photon mass. In this study, we introduce a novel approach to locally measure the photon mass using two concentric conducting cylinders filled with a dielectric medium, considering the resonance frequency of the medium due to bound charges. We investigate how the inverse of the photon reduced Compton wavelength is influenced by tuning the frequency of the voltage source around the resonant frequency of the bound charges. The results show that the upper limit for the photon mass can be established in terms of the voltage source frequency.