Determination of Photon and Elementary Particles Rest Masses Using Maxwell’s Equations and Generalized Potential Dependent Special Relativity

The nature and origin of the photon and elementary rest masses are some of the challeng-ing problems that physics face. The approaches used to solve these problems are complex and time-consuming. Specifically, the photon rest mass pays attention to theoretical physi-cists. Many experimental works show that the photon rest mass is non zero. This problem can be solved using generalized potential dependent special relativity, which has been de-rived using simple arguments, and Maxwell’s equations, besides the conventional Einstein energy-momentum relation. The results obtained show that the rest mass of photons and elementary particles are strongly dependent on the vacuum energy and a universal con-stant. This result conforms with the models that predict time decaying vacuum energy as-sociated with production of smaller rest mass particles followed by larger masses. The two potential dependent mass expressions conform with the cosmological models that suggest the photon is generated first by assuming the universe consisting of total constant vacuum with decaying cosmological part and mass generating part. Using Maxwell’s equations, beside plank and De Broglie hypothesis together with special relativity energy-momentum relation the photon rest mass is estimated. It was shown that the photon rest mass is ex-tremely small compared to the electron mass.