Electromagnetic probes in heavy-ion collisions: progress and open questions

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current state of electromagnetic probes, such as photons and dileptons, in heavy-ion collisions, emphasizing recent advances, ongoing challenges, and their potential to explore different collision energy regimes.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of electromagnetic emission sources in heavy-ion collisions, highlighting recent progress and identifying open questions in the field.

Findings

Advances in understanding photon and dilepton production mechanisms.

Identification of challenges in modeling electromagnetic emissions.

Potential of electromagnetic probes to explore low-energy collision dynamics.

Abstract

I present an overview of photon and dilepton production in heavy-ion collisions, highlighting recent progress and ongoing challenges, with focus on hard initial scatterings, pre-equilibrium electromagnetic emission, as well as thermal and hadronic production. The potential of photons and dileptons to probe low-energy collisions is discussed briefly.