Bound on the photon charge from the phase coherence of extragalactic radiation

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Jun 29;98(26):261801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.261801. Epub 2007 Jun 27.

Abstract

If the photon possessed a nonzero charge, then electromagnetic waves traveling along different paths would acquire Aharonov-Bohm phase differences. The fact that such an effect has not hindered interferometric astronomy places a bound on the photon charge estimated to be at the 10(-32)e level if all photons have the same charge and 10(-46)e if different photons can carry different charges.