Is it possible to detect an electrostatic field?

[Philipsmett]

If the electron creates an electric field around itself that can be detected,then the electrostatic field is real? So why was not the "virtual" photon found?

 

[vanhees71]

An electrostatic field is a special coherent state of the em. field, not a photon field. Virtual photons cannot be found be definition. They are calculational pieces used in perturbation theory. To get a Coulomb field from the formalism you need to resum infinitely many terms of Feyman diagrams. For the details, see Weinberg, QT of Fields vol. I (the chapter on soft-photon physics).