Photon and dilepton spectra from nonlinear QED effects in supercritical magnetic fields induced by heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

We discuss properties of photons in extremely strong magnetic fields induced by the relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We investigate the vacuum birefringence, the real-photon decay, and the photon splitting which are all forbidden in the ordinary vacuum, but become possible in strong magnetic fields. These effects potentially give rise to anisotropies in photon and dilepton spectra.

Comments: 4 pages, 6 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of Hard Probes 2015