I was wondering if there is anything exchanged during the occurrence of an electric field. Are photons exchanged, are electrons exchanged. Or is this just force acting up and not actually changing the properties of 2 objects creating an electric field?
Answer
One has to keep clear the physics framework the question is asked in, whether classical or quantum mechanical.
When talking of photons and electrons one is in the quantum mechanical framework, classical forces and classical fields emerge macroscopically from this quantum mechanical underlying framework.
In the quantum mechanical framework there exist particles and their interactions. These are described in the standard model of particle physics. This is a model in quantum field theory . The calculational tool is the Feynman diagram, where integrals are set up to calculate crossections, lifetimes etc.
There is an exchange line between the incoming and outgoing electrons, which for large numbers becomes the repulsive force from the electric field between them. This exchange line is called a virtual photon, because it is under an integral and it does not have the zero mass of a photon, only its other quantum numbers. So something is exchanged, representing the energy and momentum and angular momentum and quantum number balances for the interaction, in the above case for the repulsion of like charges.
Other internal lines can exist, affecting the emergence of the classical electric field repulsion, i.e. there will be more Feynman diagram integrals which enter with a smaller percentage in calculating the interaction, but to first order it is virtual photons that are involved in the exchanges.
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