Theory of Soft Electromagnetic Emission in Heavy-Ion Collisions
Abstract
A status report of utilizing soft electromagnetic radiation (aka thermal photons and dileptons) in the diagnosis of strongly interacting matter in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is given. After briefly elaborating on relations of the electromagnetic spectral function to chiral symmetry restoration and the transition from hadron to quark degrees of freedom, various calculations of electromagnetic emission rates in the hadronic and quark-gluon plasma phases of QCD matter are discussed. This, in particular, includes insights from recent thermal lattice QCD computations. Applications to dilepton and photon spectra in heavy-ion collisions highlight their role as a spectro-, thermo-, baro- and chrono-meter of extraordinary precision.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1110.4345,
title = {Theory of Soft Electromagnetic Emission in Heavy-Ion Collisions},
author = {Ralf Rapp},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.4345},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
30 pages, 15 figures, proceedings of 51. Cracow School of Theoretical Physics on "Soft Side of the LHC", to be published in Acta Phys. Pol