Why don't photons annihilate with themselves if they're their own antimatter?

  • Level: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter Haibara Ai
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Antimatter Photons
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
2 replies · 3K views
Haibara Ai
Messages
14
Reaction score
0
If photons are their own antimatter, then why don't they just annihilate? Also, do neutrons have antimatter, or is it themselves?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The very requirement for antiparticle is not that they annihilate.
Antiparticles is just the opposite charge and spin (time reversed particle), and SOME antiparticles will annihilate if they interact with each other. Now in standard QED, photon-photon interactions is not possible (at least not with a virtual photon coupling, but with several virtual electron/positrons)
see http://universe-review.ca/R15-12-QFT.htm

So in one sense two photons will annihilate and form photons again ;-)

I mean, what is meant by annihilation in physics anyway?

The antiparticle of the neutron is the antineutron, which has the constituent anti-quarks of the neutron, eg. 2 anti-down, 1 anti-up