Lattice studies of magnetic phenomena in heavy-ion collisions

TL;DR

This paper reviews experimental implications of superstrong magnetic fields in heavy-ion collisions, including lattice estimates of the Chiral Magnetic Effect and anisotropic dilepton emission, proposing new experimental signatures.

Contribution

It provides lattice-based estimates of the CME strength for various quark flavors and suggests flavor-dependent anisotropy as an experimental indicator.

Findings

Lattice estimates of the Chiral Magnetic Effect vary with quark flavor.

Magnetic fields induce anisotropy in dilepton emission rates.

Flavor dependence of hadron distribution anisotropy may serve as CME evidence.

Abstract

We review some experimental consequences of the presence of superstrong magnetic fields of order of the nuclear scale in noncentral heavy-ion collisions. We present lattice estimates for the strength of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) for different quark flavours and argue that the dependence of the anisotropy of the distribution of emitted hadrons on their flavor content might be used as another experimental evidence of the CME. Another possible effect of superstrong magnetic field might be the observed abnormal enhancement of dilepton yield. We show that the presence of the magnetic field leads to a specific anisotropy of the dilepton emission rate.