Consider the question, "What is a photon?". The answers say, "an elementary particle" and not much else. They don't actually answer the question. Moreover, the question is flagged as a duplicate of, "What exactly is a quantum of light?" – the answers there don't tell me what a photon is either. Nor do any of the answers to this question mentioned in the comments. When I search on "photon", I can't find anything useful. Questions such as, "Wave function of a photon" look promising, but bear no fruit. Others say things like, "the photon is an excitation of the photon field." That tells me nothing. Nor does the tag description, which says:
The photon is the quantum of the electromagnetic four-potential, and therefore the massless bosonic particle associated with the electromagnetic force, commonly also called the 'particle of light'...
I'd say that's less than helpful because it gives the impression that photons are forever popping into existence and flying back and forth exerting force. This same concept is in the photon Wikipedia article too - but it isn't true. As as anna said, "Virtual particles only exist in the mathematics of the model." So, who can tell me what a real photon is, or refer me to some kind of authoritative informative definition that is accepted and trusted by particle physicists? I say all this because I think it's of paramount importance. If we have no clear idea of what a photon actually is, we lack foundation. It's like what kotozna said:
Photons seem to be one of the foundation ideas of quantum mechanics, so I am concerned that without a clear definition or set of concrete examples, the basis for understanding quantum experiments is a little fuzzy.
I second that, only more so. How can we understand pair production if we don't understand what the photon is? Or the electron? Or the electromagnetic field? Or everything else? It all starts with the photon.
I will give a 400-point bounty to the least-worst answer to the question. One answer will get the bounty, even if I don't like it. And the question is this:
What exactly is a photon?
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