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Photon and dilepton emission from the quark-gluon plasma: Some general considerations

Journal Article · · Phys. Rev. D; (United States)

The emission rates for photons and dileptons from a quark-gluon plasma are related to the thermal expectation value of an electromagnetic current-current correlation function. This correlation function possesses an invariant-tensor decomposition with structure functions entirely analogous to W/sub 1/ and W/sub 2/ of deep-inelastic scattering of leptons from hadronic targets. The thermal scaling properties of the appropriate structure functions for thermal emission are derived. The thermal structure functions may be computed in a weak-coupling expansion at high plasma temperature. The rates for thermal emission are estimated, and for dileptons, using conservative estimates of the plasma temperature, the thermal-emission process is argued to dominate over the Drell-Yan process for dilepton masses 600 MeV

Research Organization:
Theory Group, MS-106, Fermilab P.O. Box 500, Batavia, Illinois 60510
OSTI ID:
6092665
Journal Information:
Phys. Rev. D; (United States), Journal Name: Phys. Rev. D; (United States) Vol. 31:3; ISSN PRVDA
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English