If photons and light quanta are separate issue, it is possible that photons are particles (dipoles) at high speed from the Sun.
Daylight is the result of photons interacting with orbiting electrons.
Light from a electric torch is the result of directly exciting the electrons, the torch does not produce photons.
Light from combustion, drives the electrons into oscillation along the radial direction through \(\cfrac{d^2T}{d\,t^2}\), it may not produce photons.
Then there is photoelectric effect, it has to be from a light source that produces photons. LEDs will not produce photoelectric effects. Otherwise that will suggest electrons interacting directly with quanta of energy. Which bring us to the question of what is the nature of such packets of energy. Do they have a shape, a boundary, how fast do they travel, do they dissipate if left alone, how do they dissipate...
We see that from the post "Drag and A Sense of Lightness", an electron at high speed in circular motion seems to lose mass given by the expression,
\(m_e-Ar_e=m_{el}\)
where \(m_{el}\) is a newly defined reduced mass of a electron, \(A\) is the drag factor and \(r_e\) the radius of circular motion.
The expression comes from equating centripetal force with electrostatic force and drag, The drag force provides for part of the centripetal. The result is an apparent loss in mass, as the electron perform circular motion with radius \(r_e\) around the nucleus.
In the case of photon, the centripetal force is provided for fully by the drag as its speed approaches light speed. This is the limiting case where the reduced mass is zero. Consider the centripetal force on a photon in a helical path, (Photons also have a transverse velocity, \(c^2\) that is not consider here.)
\(\cfrac{m_pc^2}{r_p}=Ac^2\)
as such
\(m_p-Ar_p=0=m_{pl}\)
Photon also has a reduced mass, \(m_{pl}\) when it is in circular motion down a helical path, this reduced mass is zero.
At this point, photon can be anything that's a dipole. \(H\), hydrogen atom is a good guess.
