Dimuon transverse momentum spectra as a tool to characterize the emission region in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Previous dilepton measurements in heavy-ion collisions have mainly focused on invariant mass spectra to clarify in-medium changes of vector meson properties. However, a dimuon is characterized by two scales -- invariant mass $M$ and transverse momentum $p_T$. Like transverse momentum spectra of hadrons, $p_T$ spectra of dileptons arise from an interplay between emission temperature and collective transverse flow, whereas the invariant mass is insensitive to flow. Having two control parameters of which only one is sensitive to flow allows at given $M$ to characterize the emission region in terms of average temperature and flow. Thus, one is able to study what phases of the fireball evolution radiate into a given mass window. We demonstrate this technique using the dimuon transverse momentum spectra measured by the NA60 collaboration and present strong arguments that a thermalized evolution phase with $T > 170$ MeV leaves an imprint in the spectra.