Thermal dilepton radiation at intermediate masses at the CERN - SPS

Sep, 1999
6 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Lett.B 473 (2000) 13-19
e-Print:
Report number:
  • SUNY-NTG-99-30

Citations per year

1999200520112017202305101520
Abstract:
We investigate the significance of thermal dilepton radiation in the intermediate-mass region in heavy-ion reactions at CERN-SpS energies. Within a thermal fireball model for the space-time evolution, the radiation from hot matter is found to dominate over hard 'background' processes (Drell-Yan and open charm) up to invariant masses of about 2 GeV, with a rather moderate fraction emerging from early stages with temperatures T175200T\simeq 175-200 MeV associated with deconfined matter. Further including a schematic acceptance for the NA50 experiment we find good agreement with the observed enhancement in the region 1.5 GeV~<Mμμ<<M_{\mu\mu}<~3 GeV. In particular, there is no need to invoke any anomalous open charm enhancement.
  • scattering: heavy ion
  • lead
  • lepton: pair production
  • mass spectrum: dilepton
  • thermodynamics
  • fireball
  • background: charm
  • Drell-Yan process
  • muon: pair production
  • numerical calculations