Effect of quark-jet energy loss on direct photons in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

We discuss the transverse momentum distribution of thermal and prompt photons in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. The prompt photons are mostly produced by fragmentation of quark jets (bremsstrahlung). If these quark jets suffer a large energy loss in heavy-ion reactions, prompt photons are significantly suppressed. Thermal electromagnetic radiation from the quark-gluon plasma and the hadron gas might then dominate the intermediate k_T-range. In central Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s}=200A GeV, and in the range 2 GeV < k_T < 4 GeV, the inverse slope of the thermal radiation is 360-460 MeV, while that of the QCD photons is 500-1000 MeV. This large difference might allow to disentangle the various sources of direct photons experimentally. At \sqrt{s}=5.5A TeV, nuclear shadowing and quark-jet quenching suppresses the QCD-photons strongly for k_T<5 GeV. Thermal radiation dominates in this k_T-region.