[akomtu]

All things decay and have half life time. I don't get what's so mysterious about it. Neutrons have some not well understood structure and that structure is unstable in the dangerous waters of quantum turbulence.

[beebmam]

Photons don't, for counterexample

[akomtu]

I'm wary of such absolute statements. I'd put photons near protons in terms of stability: they just don't show signs of decaying.

[ben_w]

I understand the wariness.

However, in relativity a photon cannot decay: because it travels at the speed of light and has infinite time dilation, it does not subjectively experience the passage of time in which the possibly of decay could exist.

[hilbert42]

OK, fair enough. But what happens in a homogeneous lossless dielectric with say a velocity factor of about say 0.6?

And what would happen in some theoretical meta material where say, values for say µ and ε were lower than their vacuum counterparts?

OK, it's a red herring, but interesting to contemplate.

[akomtu]

That's the model of photon, not the photon itself. A mathematical photon cannot decay. What prevents a photon from hitting a quantum bump on its way between galaxies and become an electron?

[cozzyd]

Indeed ultra high energy photons "decay" by interacting with the CMB.

[ben_w]

Using the word “decay” to include that feels like it can’t be right.

But I’m not a proper physicist, just an amateur.