Photon production in heavy-ion collisions at SPS energies

✍ Scribed by G.Q. Li; G.E. Brown

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 842 KB
• Volume: 632
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0375-9474
• DOI: 10.1016/s0375-9474(97)00808-7

✦ Synopsis

Single photon spectra in heavy-ion collisions at SPS energies are studied in the relativistic transport model that incorporates self-consistently the change of hadron masses in dense matter. We separate the total photon spectrum into "background" arising from the radiative decays of ~.o and ~/ mesons, and the "themal" one from other sources. For the latter we include contributions from radiative decays of p, w, T}', and at, radiative decays of baryon resonances, as well as two-body processes such as ~-Tr --~ p~, and ~rp --~ ~'~. It is found that more than 95% of all photons come from the decays of ~.0 and T} mesons, while the thermal photons account for less than 5% of the total photon yield. The thermal photon spectra in our calculations with either free or in-medium meson masses do not exceed the upper bound set by the experimental measurement of the WA80 Collaboration. @ 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.