Enhanced production of direct photons in Au+Au collisions at =200 GeV Y. Akiba (RIKEN/RBRC) for PHENIX Collaboration

Thermal Photons from the hot matter Decay photons hard: thermal: High energy density matter is formed at RHIC If the matter is thermailzed, it should emit “thermal radiation”, The temperature of the matter can directly be measured from the spectrum of thermal photon. Thermal photons can be the dominant source of direct photon for 1<pT<3 GeV/c at RHIC energies.

Thermal photons (theory prediciton) It is predicted that themal photons from QGP can be the dominant source of direct photons for 1<pT<3 GeV/c –Higher pT: pQCD photon –Lower pT: from hadronic phase Recently, other sources, such as jet-medium interaction are discussed Measurement is difficut since the expected signal is only 1/10 of photons from hadron decays S.Turbide et al PRC

Photon measurement in PHENIX PHENIX measured direct photons both in p+p and Au+Au Good agreement with NLO pQCD and Ncoll scaling at high pT Measurement is limited to pT > 4-5 GeV/c Extended in RUN5 data p+pAu+Au

Alternative method --- meaure virtual photon Source of real photon should also be able to emit virtual photon If the Q 2 (=m 2 ) of virtual photon is sufficiently small, the source strength should be the same The ratio of real photon and quasi-real photon can be calculated by QED  Real photon yield can be measured from virtual photon yield, which is observed as low mass e + e - pairs

Virtual Photon Measurement  Case of Hadrons Obviously S = 0 at M ee > M hadron  Case of direct  * – If pT 2 >>M ee 2  Possible to separate hadron decay components from real signal in the proper mass window.  Any source of real  can emit  * with very low mass.  Relation between the  * yield and real photon yield is known. S : Process dependent factor Eq. (1)

Not a new idea The idea of measuring direct photon via low mass lepton pair is not new one. It is as old as the concept of direct photon. This method is first tried at CERN ISR in search for direct photon in p+p at 55GeV. They look for e+e- pairs for 200<m<500 MeV, and they set one of the most stringent limit on direct photon production at low p T Later, UA1 measured low mass muon pairs and deduced the direct photon cross section.  /  0 = 10% J.H.Cobb, et al, PL 78B, 519 (1978)  /  0 = 0.53 ±0.92% (2< p T < 3 GeV/c) Dalitz

Measurement of low mass electron pairs arXiv: arXiv: Au+Au p+p  Real signal di-electron continuum  Background sources 1. Combinatorial background 2. Material conversion pairs 3. Additional correlated background – Visible in p+p collisions – Cross pairs from decays with 4 electrons in the final state – Pairs in same jet or back-to-back jet

Enhancement of almost real photon Kinematic region of e + e - pairs m<300 MeV and 1<p T <5 GeV/c In this kinematic region, the S/B of the continuum is at least 10% (combinatorial BG is not a problem) p+p Good agreement of p+p data and hadronic decay cocktail Small excess in p+p at large m ee and high p T Au+Au Clear enhancement visible above for all p T ppAu+Au (MB) 1 < p T < 2 GeV 2 < p T < 3 GeV 3 < p T < 4 GeV 4 < p T < 5 GeV

Possible sources of the excess Internal conversion of direct photon A source of real photon should also produce quasi-real virtual photon However, presence of virtual photon does not necessarily mean that it is related to real photon Example: q+q  e + e -,  +  -  e + e - BUT if they contribute for m<300MeV, the effective mass quark should be smaller than 150MeV and pion mass should be strongly modified…

0 < p T < 8 GeV/c0 < p T < 0.7 GeV/c 0.7 < p T < 1.5 GeV/c1.5 < p T < 8 GeV/c PHENIX Preliminary Is excess low mass enhancement?  The low mass enhancement decreases with higher pT  We see no significant indication that this low mass enhancement contribute to m 1 GeV/c (see next slide) We assume that excess is entirely due to internal conversion of direct  ○ Au+Au ● p+p Normalized by the yield in m ee < 100MeV

Determination of  * fraction, r r : direct  * /inclusive  * Direct  * /inclusive  * is determined by fitting the following function for each pT bin.  Fit in MeV gives – Assuming direct  * mass shape  2 /NDF=13.8/10 – Assuming  shape instead of direct  * shape  2 /NDF=21.1/10  Assumption of direct  * is favorable.  the mass spectrum follows the expectation for m>300 MeV  No significant contribution from “low mass enhancement” Reminder : f direct is given by Eq.(1) with S = 1.

Fit pp 1.0<pT<1.5 GeV/c Fit range: 0-300, , , , , There is little direct photon component in this pT bin. For the last three fit ranges, chi**2/DOF ~ 1 Variation of the fit results is included in sys. error in r

Fit pp GeV/c For higher pT, small direct photon contribution is revealed

Fit AuAu MB. 1.0<pT<1.5 Au+Au data has much larger excess

Systematic uncertainties Function fc(m) and fdir(m) are both normalized to the data for m<30 MeV so the sys. error. in the absolute normalization cancels Sources of the systematic uncertainties are 1)Particle composition in the hadronic background coktail 2)The subtraction of background a)Combinatorial background b)Correlated background (Jet pairs and cross pairs) 3)Distortion of the mass spectrum due to dead area of the detector 4)Efficiency correction We evaluate the distortion of mass spectrum due to these sources, and then evaluated their effect on the direct photon fraction r.

Sys. error. Cocktail hadron Ratio m ee spectra with upper/lower value of particle ratio normalized to m ee <30MeV ratio: upper/nominal, lower/nominal in the next slide we’ll show these ratios for different pT bins fit is repeated with the distorted cocktail fc(m). The change in the fraction r is taken as the systematic error. upper lower

Fraction of direct photons Compared to direct photons from pQCD p+p Consistent with NLO pQCD favors small μ Au+Au Clear excess above pQCD μ = 0.5p T μ = 1.0p T μ = 2.0p T p+p Au+Au (MB) NLO pQCD calculation is provided by Werner Vogelsang

Inclusive photon To convert the direct photon fraction r to direct photon yield, we need the invariant yield of inclusive photon. We measure inclusive photon yield from the yield of low mass electron pairs at Dalitz peak (m<30 MeV) We remind: For small Mee, the process dependent factor S becomes unity. This means that electron pair yield in Dalitz peak is proportional to inclusive photon yield. C(M max ) is the same within a few % for any photon source for M max = 30 MeV

The source of the systematic error is the error in the acceptance correction , which is estimated to be 14% The sys. uncertainty of the cocktail does not contribute to the sys. error in the inclusive photon. Inclusive photon (continued)

Direct photon spectra p+pAu+Au (MB) Direct photon yield is determined as

Fit to the p+p spectrum To characterize the p+p data, a modifed power-law function is fit to the spectrum The fit is repeated for the upper/lower systematic error of the spectrum (mostly common-mode) to determine the systematic uncertainty of the fit. A simple power-law gives worse  2 /DOF Fit function: PHENIX EMCal (PRL98, ) This analysis

Fit to Au+Au To characterize the excess of Au+Au spectrum over the TAA scaled p+p spectrum, exponentail + scaled pp is fit to the Au+Au data p+p spectrum scaled by T AA scaled ppexponential sys. error of pp fit Au+Au (MB)

Direct  via  * for p+p, Au+Au New p+p result with  * method agrees with NLO pQCD predictions, and with the measurement by the calorimeter For Au+Au there is a significant low p T excess above p+p expectations The excess above TAA scaled p+p spectrum is characterized by the exponential fit explained in the previous slides. The inverse slope and the yield of the exponential is determined.

Direct  via  * for p+p, Au+Au New p+p result with  * method agrees with NLO pQCD predictions, and with the measurement by the calorimeter For Au+Au there is a significant low p T excess above p+p expectations The excess above TAA scaled p+p spectrum is characterized by the exponential fit explained in the previous slides. The inverse slope and the yield of the exponential is determined. NLO pQCD (W. Vogelsang) Fit to pp exp + TAA scaled pp

Summary of the fit Significant yield of the exponential component (excess over the scaled p+p) The inverse slope is ~220MeV. (If power-law is used for the pp component, the value of T would increase by ~24MeV)

Theory comparison Hydrodynamical models are compared with the data D.d’Enterria &D.Peressounko T=590MeV,  0 =0.15fm/c S. Rasanen et al. T=580MeV,  0 =0.17fm/c D. K. Srivastava T= MeV,  0 =0.2fm/c S. Turbide et al. T=370MeV,  0 =0.33fm/c J. Alam et al. T=300MeV,  0 =0.5fm/c Hydrodynamical models are in qualitative agreement with the data Thery compilation by D. d’Enterria and D. Peressounko EPJC46, 451 (2006)

Summary and conclusion We have measured e+e- pairs for m<300MeV and 1<p T <5 GeV/c –Excess above hadronic background is observed –Excess is much greater in Au+Au than in p+p Treating the excess as internal conversion of direct photons, the yield of direct photon is dedued. Direct photon yield in pp is consistent with a NLO pQCD Direct photon yield in Au+Au is much larger. –Spectrum shape above TAA scaled pp is exponential, with inverse slope T=221 ±23(stat)±18(sys) MeV Hydrodynamical models with Tinit= MeV at  0 = fm/c are in qualitative agreement with the data.