Photon and dilepton production at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research and the beam energy scan program at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider using coarse-grained microscopic transport simulations

TL;DR

This paper uses coarse-grained microscopic transport simulations to predict dilepton and photon spectra in heavy-ion collisions at energies relevant to FAIR and RHIC-BES, aiming to identify signals of deconfined matter and phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining UrQMD transport calculations with equilibrium emission rates to analyze electromagnetic probes across a wide energy range.

Findings

Non-equilibrium effects influence spectra.

Baryonic matter impacts photon and dilepton signals.

High-precision measurements are essential for detecting phase transition signatures.

Abstract

We present calculations of dilepton and photon spectra for the energy range $E_{\text{lab}}=2-35$ $A$GeV which will be available for the Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at the future Facility for Anti-Proton and Ion Research (FAIR). The same energy regime will also be covered by phase II of the Beam Energy Scan at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC-BES). Coarse-grained dynamics from microscopic transport calculations of the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model is used to determine temperature and chemical potentials, which allows for the use of dilepton and photon-emission rates from equilibrium quantum-field theory calculations. The results indicate that non-equilibrium effects, the presence of baryonic matter and the creation of a deconfined phase might show up in specific manners in the measurable dilepton invariant mass spectra and in the photon transverse momentum spectra. However, as the many influences are difficult to disentangle, we argue that the challenge for future measurements of electromagnetic probes will be to provide a high precision with uncertainties much lower than in previous experiments. Furthermore, a systematic study of the whole energy range covered by CBM at FAIR and RHIC-BES is necessary to discriminate between different effects, which influence the spectra, and to identify possible signatures of a phase transition.