Ah, I see. Sorry for the snark. I was thinking more in line with the Compton effect, and thought you were talking about something like that too. (Even though it’s clear that you were explicitly not. I thought you were denying photon-virtual photon interaction because I was talking about it in a funny way.)
I would still say it’s still philosophical whether photons experience acceleration, but I concede that photon-photon interaction is not done by virtual photon exchange.
The electromagnetic field does have a force carrier. It is the photon.
The photon mediates the force between electrically charged particles. It cannot mediate any reaction between two neutral photons.
Ah, I see. Sorry for the snark. I was thinking more in line with the Compton effect, and thought you were talking about something like that too. (Even though it’s clear that you were explicitly not. I thought you were denying photon-virtual photon interaction because I was talking about it in a funny way.)
I would still say it’s still philosophical whether photons experience acceleration, but I concede that photon-photon interaction is not done by virtual photon exchange.