Hello exchemist,
Thanks for your excellent questions. Yes, regular spin-1 photons don't circle around. My proposal for a photon-like object that could circle around to form a resting electron is a hypothesized spin-1/2 charged photon. This spin-1/2 charged photon would be a new, previously unrecognized (because it has been called an electron) variety of photon that
a) travels at light speed.
b) has the photon properties: energy E=hf, momentum p=hf/c , and wave formula c=f lambda .
c) has the charge of an electron (or a positron.)
d) has mass Eo/c^2 when curled up in a double-looping (in order to get electron spin 1/2) circular trajectory to form a resting electron,
e) has orbital spin 1/2 perpendicular the plane of its circular trajectory (having either a spin of +1/2 or spin -1/2 depending on the direction of the charged photon's circular motion in relation to the electron's velocity vector.)
f) is a fermion with spin 1/2.
g) moves along an open helical trajectory at light speed to form a relativistic electron model (moving at sub-light speed) that would continue to have spin 1/2 at highly relativistic electron velocities.
h) generates the moving electron's relativistic de Broglie wavelength h/(gamma mv) along the helical trajectory's axis.
All of these features are described in my article "Electrons are spin-1/2 charged photons generating the de Broglie wavelength" at
https://www.academia.edu/15686831/E..._photons_generating_the_de_Broglie_wavelength
A centripetal force is required to move the photon-like object in a circle. In my resting electron model, the circling spin 1/2 charged photon has a calculated centripetal force on it of 0.424 Newtons, which changes the direction of the momentum of the circling charged photon but not the charged photon's energy Eo. This centripetal force is calculated for my electron model in my article "Origin of the electron's inertia and relativistic energy‐momentum equation in the spin 1/2 charged‐photon electron model" at
https://www.academia.edu/25599166/O...ion_in_the_Spin_Charged_Photon_Electron_Model . The source of this large centripetal force is currently not understood.
The electron model's electric charge is accounted for by postulating the spin-1/2 electrically charged photon that can form a double-looping electron model. No one knows the origin of electric charge. In the present electron model it could be associated with the topology of the double-looping trajectory of the hypothesized spin-1/2 charged photon when it curls up to form an electron.
I accept special relativity in my model. But special relativity is not needed to derive the mass m= Eo/c^2 of a resting electron formed from a circling photon-like object of energy Eo and circling momentum Eo/c. My relativistically-moving electron model (first link above) is described in part by setting the total energy of a relativistic electron E=gamma mc^2 equal to the energy E=hf of the helically circulating photon-like object, giving (as de Broglie mathematically postulated for a relativistic electron) the equation hf=gamma mc^2 . (De Broglie used this equation to describe an electron generating waves rather than to describe a photon-like object forming an electron as I do.) This gives a relativistic frequency f of the helically circulating charged photon to be f=(gamma mc^2)/h which, using c=f lambda gives the charged-photon's wavelength lambda=h/(gamma mc) along the helical trajectory of the charged photon forming the relativistic electron. This leads easily to generate the de Broglie wavelength lambda-deBroglie = h/(gamma mv) along the longitudinal axis of the helically moving charged photon.