Prompt, pre-equilibrium, and thermal photons in relativistic nuclear collisions

Abstract

The direct photon emission model in relativistic nuclear colliders has been improved in recent years for reducing the discrepancy between theoretical estimations and experimental data and for understanding the properties of the QCD matter. In this study, the contribution of pre-equilibrium photons are investigated in addition to those of prompt and thermal photons in the framework of a relativistic hydrodynamic model. The numerical simulations at an LHC energy suggest that the pre-equilibrium photons may be relevant at intermediate transverse momentum near the saturation momentum scale, increasing particle spectra and reducing elliptic flow of direct photons.