Anomalous enhancement of dilepton production due to soft modes in dense quark matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how soft modes near phase transitions in dense quark matter significantly enhance dilepton production rates at low energies, revealing critical effects of second-order phase transitions.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of soft modes on dilepton production near the QCD critical point and color superconductivity, highlighting mechanisms analogous to superconductivity paraconductivity.

Findings

Soft modes cause a significant enhancement of dilepton production near the critical temperature.

The enhancement is due to modifications in photon self-energy from Aslamasov-Larkin, Maki-Thompson, and density of states effects.

The results suggest observable signatures of phase transitions in dense quark matter.

Abstract

We explore how the dilepton production rate is modified near the critical temperature of color superconductivity and QCD critical point by the soft modes inherently associated with the phase transitions of second-order. It is shown that the soft modes affect the photon self-energy significantly through so called the Aslamasov-Larkin, Maki-Thompson and density of states terms, which are known responsible for the paraconductivity in the metalic superconductivity, and cause an anomalous enhancement of the production rate in the low energy/momentum region.