Dilepton production with the SMASH model

TL;DR

This paper introduces the SMASH hadronic transport model for simulating non-equilibrium hadronic matter in heavy-ion collisions, focusing on dilepton spectra and electromagnetic form factors at GSI/FAIR energies.

Contribution

The paper presents the SMASH model as a next-generation approach for simulating hadronic matter, including novel treatment of electromagnetic transition form factors within a transport framework.

Findings

Dilepton spectra computed with SMASH match experimental expectations.

Electromagnetic transition form factors can be derived from the transport model.

Resonance dynamics are crucial in the energy range studied.

Abstract

In this work the SMASH model is presented ("Simulating Many Accelerated Strongly-Interacting Hadrons"), a next-generation hadronic transport approach, which is designed to describe the non-equilibrium evolution of hadronic matter in heavy-ion collisions. We discuss first dilepton spectra obtained with SMASH in the few-GeV energy range of GSI/FAIR, where the dynamics of hadronic matter is dominated by the production and decay of various resonance states. In particular we show how electromagnetic transition form factors can emerge in a transport picture under the hypothesis of vector-meson dominance.