Electromagnetic radiation by quark-gluon plasma in a magnetic field

The electromagnetic radiation by quark-gluon plasma in a strong magnetic field is calculated. The contributing processes are synchrotron radiation and one-photon annihilation. It is shown that in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) synchrotron radiation dominates over the annihilation. Moreover, it constitutes a significant part of all photons produced by the plasma at low transverse momenta; its magnitude depends on the plasma temperature and the magnetic field strength. Electromagnetic radiation in a magnetic field is probably the missing piece that resolves a discrepancy between the theoretical models and the experimental data. It is argued that electromagnetic radiation increases with the magnetic field strength and plasma temperature. Disciplines Astrophysics and Astronomy | Physics Comments This article is from Physical Review C 87 (2013): 024912, doi: 10.1103/PhysRevC.87.024912. Posted with permission. This article is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/physastro_pubs/150 PHYSICAL REVIEW C 87, 024912 (2013) Electromagnetic radiation by quark-gluon plasma in a magnetic field Kirill Tuchin Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 USA (Received 10 July 2012; published 25 February 2013) The electromagnetic radiation by quark-gluon plasma in a strong magnetic field is calculated. The contributing processes are synchrotron radiation and one-photon annihilation. It is shown that in relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) synchrotron radiation dominates over the annihilation. Moreover, it constitutes a significant part of all photons produced by the plasma at low transverse momenta; its magnitude depends on the plasma temperature and the magnetic field strength. Electromagnetic radiation in a magnetic field is probably the missing piece that resolves a discrepancy between the theoretical models and the experimental data. It is argued that electromagnetic radiation increases with the magnetic field strength and plasma temperature. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevC.87.024912 PACS number(s): 25.75.Cj, 12.38.Mh