Electromagnetic Radiation from Broken Symmetries in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions

Abstract

A new channel of direct photon production from a quark gluon plasma (QGP) is explored in the framework of high-temperature QCD. This process appears at next-to-leading order, in the presence of a charge asymmetry in the excited matter. The photon production rate from this new mechanism is suppressed compared to the QCD annihilation and Compton scattering at low baryon density but assumes importance in baryon-rich matter.

Comments: 6 pages, 3 figures, Contribution to the Quark Matter 2006 Conference in Shanghai, Nov 14-20 2006, to be submitted to International Journal of Modern Physics E (World Scientific)