Prediction of a Photon Peak in Heavy Ion Collisions

TL;DR

This paper predicts a universal photon peak in the spectrum of heavy ion collisions caused by bound vector mesons in quark-gluon plasma, which could be observed at LHC, revealing properties of strongly coupled plasmas.

Contribution

It introduces a universal mechanism for photon peaks in strongly coupled plasmas with gravity duals, linked to vector meson behavior after deconfinement.

Findings

A photon peak between 3 and 5 GeV for J/psi in heavy ion collisions.

The peak is a universal feature of large-Nc, strongly coupled plasmas with gravity duals.

Potential observability of the photon peak at LHC.

Abstract

We show that if a flavour-less vector meson remains bound after deconfinement, and if its limiting velocity in the quark-gluon plasma is subluminal, then this meson produces a distinct peak in the spectrum of thermal photons emitted by the plasma. We also demonstrate that this effect is a universal property of all strongly coupled, large-Nc plasmas with a gravity dual. For the J/psi the corresponding peak lies between 3 and 5 GeV and could be observed at LHC.