Electromagnetic Radiation in Hot QCD Matter: Rates, Electric Conductivity, Flavor Susceptibility and Diffusion

Abstract

We discuss the general features of the electromagnetic radiation from a thermal hadronic gas as constrained by chiral symmetry. The medium effects on the electromagnetic spectral functions and the partial restoration of chiral symmetry are quantified in terms of the pion densities. The results are compared with the electromagnetic radiation from a strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma in terms of the leading gluon condensate operators. We use the spectral functions as constrained by the emission rates to estimate the electric conductivity, the light flavor susceptibility and diffusion constant across the transition from the correlated hadronic gas to a strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma.