Speaker
Description
Dileptons ($l^+l^-$) are produced throughout all stages of heavy-ion collisions (HIC) through various production mechanisms. Since leptons have a small interaction cross section with the strongly interacting medium, they carry information about the medium from the early stages to the final state of the system. For this reason, dileptons provide an essential tool for studying the properties of the strongly interacting medium produced in HICs. Dileptons produced within the intermediate mass region (IMR, $M_\phi$<$M_{ll}$<$M_{J/\psi}$) result predominantly from the decay of correlated charm but also arise from thermal radiation of the hot and dense medium. The inverse slope parameter of the thermally produced dileptons in the IMR provides a measurement of the medium's temperature at early times which is free from radial flow effects [1]. The installation of the Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) at STAR allows a measurement of the dimuon ($\mu^+\mu^-$) production over a large invariant mass range for the first time. Data has been collected with the full MTD from Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV and from p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV. These two datasets allow for new opportunities to measure the dimuon invariant mass spectra at STAR.
As a first step towards measuring the thermal dimuon invariant mass spectra in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV, this talk will present the baseline dimuon measurement in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV. The dimuon invariant mass spectra in p+p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV will be presented and the viability of measurements in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 200 GeV will be discussed.
Reference
[1] R. Rapp and H. van Hees, Phys. Lett. B753, 586 (2016).
| Content type | Experiment |
|---|---|
| Collaboration | STAR |
| Centralised submission by Collaboration | Presenter name already specified |
