Dynamics of Quark Gluon Plasma and Interference of Thermal Photons

Abstract

The quantum statistical interference between identical particles emitted from a completely chaotic source is expected to provide valuable input for the space time description of the system. Intensity interferometry of thermal photons produced in heavy ion collisions is a very promising tool to explore the structure and dynamics of the collision fireball. Thermal photons having $K_T \, \le \, 2$ GeV/$c$ get competing contribution from both hadronic and quark matter phases and this competition gives rise to a rich structure in the outward correlation function, owing to the interference between the photons from the two sources. The temporal separation between the two sources provides the lifetime of the system and the correlation results are found to be sensitive to quark hadron phase transition temperature and the formation time of the plasma. The outward correlation function strongly depends on the equation of state of the strongly interacting matter and is seen to clearly distinguish between the lattice based and bag model equations of state.