Photons and Electric Current
I am trying to understand how photons as the force carrier for the electromagnetic force (or field) manifest themselves in a flow of electric charge, i.e. an electric current. Both standard (classical) model explanations and field explanations are welcome. I am a layman, so ... be gentle?
After doing some reading, research, digging, and crying, I keep returning to some explanations that seem to describe the photon's role best (but yet, I still think they might be inaccurate).
For instance, someone described it this way: electrons move through a wire in a line (direct current) because they are repelled by each other, thus they "push" each other down the wire. This pushing is expressed by photons (some say "virtual", i.e. mathematical not "real", photons) being exchanged between the electrons that "push" the electrons away from each other. Yet, if these (virtual?) photons push out in all directions, they would push against both electrons in the wire (for a simplified line of single electrons each having one in "front" and one "behind"). However, the dry cell (battery) reaction forcing electrons out one end and drawing them in at the other tips the balance, if you will, keeping the electrons moving in the direction of the current.
Alternately, I've heard it this way: a photon is a ripple in the photon field. The "ripple" is what we have been trying to (somewhat inaccurately) describe with the word "particle". 187
As the photon moves, it interacts with (some say "creates") an electric field and a magnetic field (the electric and magnetic fields are perpendicular to each other). The photons that make up a static electric or magnetic field are virtual, i.e. their energy and momentum don't satisfy the conditions of "real" photons: E = p*c. Photons are emitted and absorbed by charged particles constantly. A charged particle is thus constantly emitting and absorbing virtual (i.e. mathematically described) photons. Photons only interact with charged particles, not with each other. Every photon is surrounded by a group/cadre/entourage of electrons (and other charged particles), through these associated charged particles, a photon can interact with another photon. Presumptively (and likely erroneously), the movement of these photons drives the electrons down our wire to complete the electric circuit and are thus responsible for the electric current.
Finally, there is this thing (which I love): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxqZczaSA9c
... but what the heck is that? An electron constantly sucking in photons and spitting them about, but what are the four "rings" they are going through? Ripples in the electromagnetic field? 395