Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Beam Energy and Centrality Dependence of Direct-Photon Emission from Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

  • (PHENIX Collaboration)
  • University of Colorado Boulder
  • Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
  • Columbia University
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • University of Massachusetts
  • University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Stony Brook University
  • RIKEN
  • Brookhaven National Lab
  • The University of Tokyo
  • New Mexico State University
  • Howard University
  • High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Tsukuba
  • Kyoto University
  • Iowa State University
  • Nantes Université
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Institute for High Energy Physics
  • Eötvös Loránd University
  • Florida Institute of Technology
  • CEA Saclay
  • University of California at Riverside
  • University of New Mexico
  • Abilene Christian University
  • City University of New York
  • Petersburg Nuclear Physics InstituteGatchina
  • University of Münster

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

The PHENIX collaboration presents first measurements of low-momentum (0.4<pT<3 GeV/c) direct-photon yields from Au+Au collisions at sNN=39 and 62.4 GeV. For both beam energies the direct-photon yields are substantially enhanced with respect to expectations from prompt processes, similar to the yields observed in Au+Au collisions at sNN=200. Analyzing the photon yield as a function of the experimental observable dNch/dη reveals that the low-momentum (>1 GeV/c) direct-photon yield dNγdir/dη is a smooth function of dNch/dη and can be well described as proportional to (dNch/dη)α with α≈1.25. This scaling behavior holds for a wide range of beam energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider, for centrality selected samples, as well as for different A+A collision systems. At a given beam energy, the scaling also holds for high pT (>5 GeV/c), but when results from different collision energies are compared, an additional sNN-dependent multiplicative factor is needed to describe the integrated-direct-photon yield.

Original languageEnglish
Article number022301
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume123
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 10 2019

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Beam Energy and Centrality Dependence of Direct-Photon Emission from Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this