Dilepton Production Rate Research Articles

Impact of momentum anisotropy and turbulent chromo-fields on thermal particle production in quark\u2013gluon-plasma medium

Momentum anisotropy present during the hydrodynamic evolution of the Quark–Gluon Plasma (QGP) in RHIC may lead to the chromo-Weibel instability and turbulent chromo-fields.The dynamics of the quark and gluon momentum distributions in this case is governed by an effective diffusive Vlasov equation (linearized). The solution of this linearized transport equation for the modified momentum distribution functions lead to the mathematical form of non-equilibrium momentum distribution functions of quarks/antiquarks and gluons. The modifications to these distributions encode the physics of turbulent color fields and momentum anisotropy. In the present manuscript, we employ these distribution functions to estimate the thermal dilepton production rate in the QGP medium. The production rate is seen to have appreciable sensitivity to the strength of the anisotropy.

Dilepton production rate in a hot and magnetized quark–gluon plasma

The differential multiplicity of dileptons in a hot and magnetized quark–gluon plasma, ΔB≡dNB/d4xd4q, is derived from first principles. The constant magnetic field B is assumed to be aligned in a fixed spatial direction. It is shown that the anisotropy induced by the B field is mainly reflected in the general structure of photon spectral density function. This is related to the imaginary part of the vacuum polarization tensor, Im[Πμν], which is derived in a first order perturbative approximation. As expected, the final analytical expression for ΔB includes a trace over the product of a photonic part, Im[Πμν], and a leptonic part, Lμν. It is shown that ΔB consists of two parts, ΔB∥ and ΔB⊥, arising from the components (μ,ν)=(∥,∥) and (μ,ν)=(⊥,⊥) of Im[Πμν] and Lμν. Here, the transverse and longitudinal directions are defined with respect to the direction of the B field. Combining ΔB∥ and ΔB⊥, a novel anisotropy factor νB is introduced. Using the final analytical expression of ΔB, the possible interplay between the temperature T and the magnetic field strength eB on the ratio ΔB/Δ0 and νB is numerically studied. Here, Δ0 is the Born approximated dilepton multiplicity in the absence of external magnetic fields. It is, in particular, shown that for each fixed T and B, in the vicinity of certain threshold energies of virtual photons, ΔB≫Δ0 and ΔB⊥≫ΔB∥. The latter anisotropy may be interpreted as one of the microscopic sources of the macroscopic anisotropies, reflecting themselves, e.g., in the elliptic asymmetry factor v2 of dileptons.

Power corrections to the electromagnetic spectral function and the dilepton rate in QCD plasma within operator product expansion in D = 4

We evaluate the electromagnetic spectral function in QCD plasma in a nonperturbative background of in-medium quark and gluon condensates by incorporating the leading order power corrections in a systematic framework within the ambit of the operator product expansion in D=4 dimension. We explicitly show that the mixing of the composite operators removes mass singularities and renders Wilson coefficients finite and well defined. As a spectral property, we then obtain the nonperturbative dilepton production rate from QCD plasma. The operator product expansion automatically restricts the dilepton rate to the intermediate mass range, which is found to be enhanced due to the power corrections. We also compare our result with those from nonperturbative calculations, e.g., lattice QCD and effective QCD models based on Polyakov loop.

Thermal photon, dilepton production, and electric charge transport in a baryon rich strongly coupled QGP from holography

We obtain the thermal photon and dilepton production rates in a strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (QGP) at both zero and nonzero baryon chemical potential using a bottom-up Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) holographic model that is in good quantitative agreement with the thermodynamics of $(2+1)$-flavor lattice QCD around the crossover transition for baryon chemical potentials up to 400 MeV, which may be reached in the beam energy scan (BES) at RHIC. We find that increasing the temperature $T$ and the baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$ enhances the peak present in both spectra. We also obtain the electric charge susceptibility, the DC and AC electric conductivities and the electric charge diffusion as functions of $T$ and $\mu_B$. We find that electric diffusive transport is suppressed as one increases $\mu_B$. At zero baryon density, we compare our results for the DC electric conductivity and the electric charge diffusion with the latest lattice data available for these observables and find reasonable agreement around the crossover transition. Therefore, our holographic results may be used to constraint the magnitude of the thermal photon and dilepton production rates in a strongly coupled QGP, which we found to be at least one order of magnitude below perturbative estimates.

Dileptons in a coarse-grained transport approach

We calculate dilepton spectra in heavy-ion collisions using a coarse-graining approach to the simulation of the created medium with the UrQMD transport model. This enables the use of dilepton-production rates evaluated in equilibrium quantum-field theory at finite temperatures and chemical potentials.

Dilepton production spectrum aboveTcwith a lattice quark propagator

The dilepton production rate from the deconfined medium is analyzed with the photon self-energies constructed from quark propagators obtained by lattice numerical simulation for two values of temperature $T=1.5T_{\rm c}$ and $3T_{\rm c}$ above the critical temperature $T_{\rm c}$. The photon self-energy is calculated by the Schwinger-Dyson equation with the lattice quark propagtor and a vertex function determined so as to satisfy the Ward-Takahashi identity. The obtained dilepton production rate at zero momentum exhibits divergences reflecting van Hove singularity, and is significantly enhanced around $\omega\simeq T$ compared with the rate obtained by the perturbative analysis.

Quark and gluon distribution functions in a viscous quark-gluon plasma medium and dilepton production viaqq¯annihilation

Viscous modifications to the thermal distributions of quark-antiquarks and gluons have been studied in a quasi-particle description of the quark-gluon-plasma medium created in relativistic heavy ion collision experiments. The model is described in terms of quasi-partons that encode the hot QCD medium effects in their respective effective fugacities. Both shear and bulk viscosities have been taken in to account in the analysis and the modifications to thermal distributions have been obtained by modifying the the energy momentum tensor in view of the non-trivial dispersion relations for the gluons and quarks. As an implication, dilepton production rate in the $q \bar{q}$ annihilation process has been investigated. Significant modifications have been observed in the dilepton production rate in the presence of interactions encoded in the QCD equation of state.

Vector meson spectral function and dilepton rate in the presence of strong entanglement effect between the chiral and the Polyakov loop dynamics

In this work we have reexplored our earlier study on the vector meson spectral function and its spectral property in the form of dilepton rate in a two-flavor Polyakov loop extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model in the presence of a strong entanglement between the chiral and Polyakov loop dynamics. The entanglement considered here is generated through the four-quark scalar-type interaction in which the coupling strength depends on the Polyakov loop and runs with temperature and chemical potential. The entanglement effect is also considered for the four-quark vector-type interaction in the same manner. We observe that the entanglement effect relatively enhances the color degrees of freedom due to the running of both the scalar and vector couplings. This modifies the vector meson spectral function and, thus, the spectral property such as the dilepton production rate in the low invariant mass also gets modified.

Chiral symmetry breaking and confinement effects on dilepton and photon production aroundTc

Production rates of dileptons and photons from the quark-gluon (QGP) phase are calculated taking into account effects of confinement and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking (\chi SB) not far from the transition temperature $T_c$. We find that the production rates of dileptons with large momenta and of photons originating from the QGP around $T_c$ are suppressed by the \chi SB effect. We also discuss to what extent information about details of the chiral transition, such as its characteristic temperature range and the steepness of the crossover, are reflected in these quantities.

Dilepton production from the quark-gluon plasma using (3+1)-dimensional anisotropic dissipative hydrodynamics

We compute dilepton production from the deconfined phase of the quark-gluon plasma using leading-order ($3+1$)-dimensional anisotropic hydrodynamics. The anisotropic hydrodynamics equations employed describe the full spatiotemporal evolution of the transverse temperature, spheroidal momentum-space anisotropy parameter, and the associated three-dimensional collective flow of the matter. The momentum-space anisotropy is also taken into account in the computation of the dilepton production rate, allowing for a self-consistent description of dilepton production from the quark-gluon plasma. For our final results, we present predictions for high-energy dilepton yields as a function of invariant mass, transverse momentum, and pair rapidity. We demonstrate that high-energy dilepton production is extremely sensitive to the assumed level of initial momentum-space anisotropy of the quark-gluon plasma. As a result, it may be possible to experimentally constrain the early-time momentum-space anisotropy of the quark-gluon plasma generated in relativistic heavy-ion collisions using high-energy dilepton yields.

Vector meson spectral function and dilepton production rate in a hot and dense medium within an effective QCD approach

The properties of the vector meson current-current correlation function and its spectral representation are investigated in details with and without isoscalar-vector interaction within the framework of effective QCD approach, namely Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model and its Polyakov Loop extended version (PNJL), at finite temperature and finite density. The influence of the isoscalarvector interaction on the vector meson correlator is obtained using the ring resummation known as the Random Phase Approximation (RPA). The spectral as well as the correlation function in PNJL model show that the vector meson retains its bound property up to a moderate value of temperature above the phase transition. Using the vector meson spectral function we, for the first time, obtained the dilepton production rate from a hot and dense medium within the framework of PNJL model that takes into account the nonperturbative effect through the Polyakov Loop fields. The dilepton production rate in PNJL model is enhanced compared to NJL and Born rate in the deconfined phase due to the suppression of color degrees of freedom at moderate temperature. The presence of isoscalar-vector interaction further enhances the dileption rate over the Born rate in the low mass region. Further, we also have computed the Euclidean correlation function in vector channel and the conserved density fluctuation associated with temporal correlation function appropriate for a hot and dense medium. The dilepton rate and the Euclidean correlator are also compared with available lattice data and those quantities in PNJL model are found to agree well in certain domain.

Production of dilepton/photon in semi-quark gluon plasma

We consider the production of dilepton/photon in deconfined Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). In the region of semi-QGP, effective color degrees of freedom are suppressed by a small value of the Polyakov loop. We find that the effect of the Polyakov loop leads to modest enhancement in the dilepton production rate but strong suppression in the photon production rate. The suppression of photon production in the QGP phase offers a possible explanation to the puzzle of photon elliptic flow.

Interpolation of hard and soft dilepton rates

Strict next-to-leading order (NLO) results for the dilepton production rate from a QCD plasma at temperatures above a few hundred MeV suffer from a breakdown of the loop expansion in the regime of soft invariant masses M^2 << (pi T)^2. In this regime an LPM resummation is needed for obtaining the correct leading-order result. We show how to construct an interpolation between the hard NLO and the leading-order LPM expression. The final numerical results are presented in a tabulated form, suitable for insertion into hydrodynamical codes.

Theoretical aspects of photon production in high energy nuclear collisions

A brief overview of the calculation of photon and dilepton production rates in a deconfined quark-gluon plasma is presented. We review leading order rates as well as recent NLO determinations and non-equilibrium corrections. Furthermore, the difficulties in a non-perturbative lattice determination are summarized.

On loop corrections to the dilepton rate

Next-to-leading order analyses of the dilepton production rate from a hot QCD plasma are reviewed. In general, the photon invariant mass is taken to be in the range K2∼(πT)2, permitting thereby for an interpolation between an OPE computation in a hard regime K2≫(πT)2 and an LPM resummed computation in a soft regime 0<K2≪(πT)2. If the computations are extended into the spacelike domain K2<0 in the future, they can also be systematically compared with lattice results at non-zero momentum.

Dilepton production in thermal-dependent baryonic quark–gluon plasma

We evolute a fireball of quark–gluon plasma (QGP) at thermal-dependent chemical potential (TDCP) through a statistical model in the pionic medium. The evolution of the fireball is explained through the free energy created in the pionic medium. We study the dilepton production at TDCP from such a fireball of QGP and hadronic phase. In this model, we take a finite quark mass dependence on temperature and parametrization factor. The temperature and factor enhance in the growth of the droplet formation of quarks and gluons as well as in the dilepton production rates. The production rate shows dilepton spectrum in the low mass region of the lepton pair as 0–1.2 GeV and in the intermediate mass region of 1.0–4.0 GeV. The rate of production is observed to be a strong increasing function of the TDCP for quark and antiquark annihilation. We compare the result of dilepton production at this TDCP with the production rate of the recent dilepton productions at zero and finite baryonic chemical potential and found the result far ahead in the production rates of dilepton at TDCP.

More on thermal probes of a strongly coupled anisotropic plasma

We extend the analysis of 1211.2199, where the photon production rate of an anisotropic strongly coupled plasma with Nf<<Nc massless quarks was considered. We allow here for non-vanishing quark masses and study how these affect the spectral densities and conductivities. We also compute another important probe of the plasma, the dilepton production rate. We consider generic angles between the anisotropic direction and the photon and dilepton wave vectors, as well as arbitrary quark masses and arbitrary values of the anisotropy parameter. Generically, the anisotropy increases the production rate of both photons and dileptons, compared with an isotropic plasma at the same temperature.

NLO thermal dilepton rate at non-zero momentum

The vector channel spectral function and the dilepton production rate from a QCD plasma at a temperature above a few hundred MeV are evaluated up to next-to-leading order (NLO) including their dependence on a non-zero momentum with respect to the heat bath. The invariant mass of the virtual photon is taken to be in the range $ {{\mathcal{K}}^2} $ ~ (πT)2 ~ (1GeV)2, generalizing previous NLO results valid for $ {{\mathcal{K}}^2} $ ≫ (πT)2. In the opposite regime 0 < $ {{\mathcal{K}}^2} $ ≪ (πT)2 the loop expansion breaks down, but agrees nevertheless in order of magnitude with a previous result obtained through resummations. Ways to test the vector spectral function through comparisons with imaginary-time correlators measured on the lattice are discussed.

Enhanced thermal photon and dilepton production in strongly coupled $ \mathcal{N} $ = 4 SYM plasma in strong magnetic field

We calculate the DC conductivity tensor of strongly coupled N=4 super-Yang-Mills (SYM) plasma in a presence of a strong external magnetic field B>>T^2 by using its gravity dual and employing both the RG flow approach and membrane paradigm which give the same results. We find that, since the magnetic field B induces anisotropy in the plasma, different components of the DC conductivity tensor have different magnitudes depending on whether its components are in the direction of the magnetic field B. In particular, we find that a component of the DC conductivity tensor in the direction of the magnetic field B increases linearly with B while the other components (which are not in the direction of the magnetic field B) are independent of it. These results are consistent with the lattice computations of the DC conductivity tensor of the QCD plasma in an external magnetic field B. Using the DC conductivity tensor, we calculate the soft or low-frequency thermal photon and dilepton production rates of the strongly coupled N=4 SYM plasma in the presence of the strong external magnetic field B>>T^2. We find that the strong magnetic field B enhances both the thermal photon and dilepton production rates of the strongly coupled N=4 SYM plasma in a qualitative agreement with the experimentally observed enhancements at the heavy-ion collision experiments.

Thermal 2-loop master spectral function at finite momentum

When considering NLO corrections to thermal particle production in the "relativistic" regime, in which the invariant mass squared of the produced particle is K^2 ~ (pi T)^2, then the production rate can be expressed as a sum of a few universal "master" spectral functions. Taking the most complicated 2-loop master as an example, a general strategy for obtaining a convergent 2-dimensional integral representation is suggested. The analysis applies both to bosonic and fermionic statistics, and shows that for this master the non-relativistic approximation is only accurate for K^2 > (8 pi T)^2, whereas the zero-momentum approximation works surprisingly well. Once the simpler masters have been similarly resolved, NLO results for quantities such as the right-handed neutrino production rate from a Standard Model plasma or the dilepton production rate from a QCD plasma can be assembled for K^2 ~ (pi T)^2.