Conveners
Parallel 16: Thermal EM
- Jean-Francois Paquet (Vanderbilt University)
Measurements of direct photons can provide valuable information on the properties and evolution of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP); from the initial conditions to the pre-equilibrium, QGP, and the hadronic phase. In the ALICE experiment, photons that convert in the detector material are reconstructed down to low momentum using the excellent tracking capabilities. Furthermore, photons are...
Photons, both real and virtual, are one of the cleanest probes of high-density partonic matter produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions as they carry unmodified information about the evolution of the system.
Leveraging the versatility of RHIC, PHENIX has measured low momentum direct photons across different collision systems ranging from $p$+$p$ to Au+Au. An excess of direct photons,...
Dielectrons, emitted during the evolution of the hot and dense QCD medium created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, offer an effective probe of the hot medium properties, as they do not involve strong interactions. The dielectron emission rate is proportional to the medium's electromagnetic spectral function. In the dielectron mass range from $400$ to $800$ MeV/$c^{2}$, the spectral...
Lattice QCD predicts a phase transition from hadronic matter to the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) at high temperature and small baryon chemical potential. Thermal dileptons can be produced throughout the entire evolution of a collision and do not involve strong interactions. As a result, they can carry information about their emission source, and are therefore suggested as the ideal probes of hot...
Electromagnetic probes are a unique tool for studying the space-time evolution of the hot and dense matter created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Dielectron pairs are emitted during the entire evolution of the medium created in such collisions, allowing the extraction of the real direct photon fraction at vanishing mass, providing access to thermal radiation from the early hot...
