Large mass dileptons from the passage of jets through a quark gluon plasma

Abstract

We calculate the emission of large mass dileptons originating from the annihilation of quark jets passing through quark gluon plasma. Considering central collisions of heavy nuclei at SPS, RHIC, and LHC energies, we find that the yield due to the jet-plasma interaction gets progressively larger as the collision energy increases. We find it to be negligible at SPS energies, of the order of the Drell-Yan contribution and much larger than the normal thermal yield at RHIC energies and up to a factor of 10 larger than the Drell-Yan contribution at LHC energies. An observation of this new dilepton source would confirm the occurrence of jet-plasma interactions and of conditions suitable for jet quenching to take place.