Photon emission rates near the critical point in the linear sigma model

Abstract

Employing the linear sigma model, the effective masses of quasi-particle excitations are found to exhibit significant variations within the phase diagram, which has a critical point at non-zero chemical potential, where a first-order phase transition sets in. Soft-photon emission rates in lowest order display, for selected channels, a sensible dependence on the effective masses of the involved excitations and let us argue that they could map out the phase diagram.