Is there any experimental evidence that the photon has zero rest mass?
If the rest mass of the photon was non-zero, the theory of quantum electrodynamics would be “in trouble” primarily through loss of gauge invariance, which would make it non-renormalizable; also, charge-conservation would no longer be absolutely guaranteed, as it is if photons have vanishing rest-mass. However, whatever theory says, it is still necessary to check theory against experiment. It is almost certainly impossible to do any experiment which would establish that the photon rest mass is exactly zero. The best we can hope to do is place limits on it. A non-zero rest mass would lead to a change in the inverse square Coulomb law of electrostatic forces. There would be a small damping factor making it weaker over very large distances. The behavior of static magnetic fields is likewise modified. A limit on the photon mass can be obtained through satellite measurements of planetary magnetic fields. The Charge Composition Explorer spacecraft was used to derive a limit of 6×10-16 eV with
