Photon production from an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma

2006/11/27 by Björn Schenke, Bjoern Schenke, Michael Strickland
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Annihilation #Compton scattering #Gluon #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Isotropy #Nuclear physics #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Photon #Physics #Plasma #Production (economics) #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Quark #Quark–gluon plasma #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.76.025023

published as Phys.Rev.D76:025023,2007 · 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

arxiv created 2006/11/27 · openalex publication_date 2007/07/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We calculate photon production from a quark-gluon plasma which is anisotropic in momentum space including the Compton scattering, q(q)g\ensuremath→q(q)\ensuremathγ, and annihilation, qq\ensuremath→g\ensuremathγ, processes. We show that for a quark-gluon plasma which has an oblate momentum-space anisotropy, ⟨p_L²⟩<⟨p_T²⟩, the photon production rate has an angular dependence which is peaked transverse to the beam line. We propose to use the angular dependence of high-energy medium photon production to experimentally determine the degree of momentum-space isotropy of a quark-gluon plasma produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions.

Citations

• Fate of non-Abelian plasma instabilities in3+1dimensions
• Thermal photon production rate from nonequilibrium quantum field theory
• Collective Non-Abelian Instabilities in a Melting Color Glass Condensate
• Chromohydrodynamic approach to the unstable quark-gluon plasma
• Momentum broadening in an anisotropic plasma