Electromagnetic Signals at RHIC

Abstract

We calculate the direct photon yield in central and mid-peripheral Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). The processes involving the propagation of jets have been convolved with a leading order treatment of jet energy loss in the medium and a one dimensional hydrodynamic expansion. The quark-gluon plasma (QGP) contribution turns out to be important, especially the in-medium conversion of a jet into a photon, for successfully describing recent photon measurements.

Comments: Talk given at the Particle and Nuclei International Conference (PANIC 2005), 24-28 October 2005, Santa Fe, NM