Anisotropy of Photon Production: Initial Eccentricity or Magnetic Field

Abstract

Recent measurements of the azimuthal anisotropy of direct photons in heavy-ion collisions at the energies of Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider show that it is of the same order as the hadronic one. This finding appears to contradict the expected dominance of photon production from a quark-gluon plasma at an early stage of a heavy-ion collision. A possible explanation of the strong azimuthal anisotropy of the photons, given recently, is based on the presence of a large magnetic field in the early phase of a collision. In this Letter, we propose a method to experimentally measure the degree to which a magnetic field in heavy-ion collisions is responsible for the observed anisotropy of photon production. The experimental test proposed in this Letter may potentially change our understanding of the nonequilibrium stage and possible thermalization in heavy-ion collisions.