Can dileptons be observed in heavy ion collisions at RHIC?

Abstract

Both dilepton and charm production at RHIC are considered to be important signatures for Quark-Gluon Plasma production. Recently it was argued by S.Gavin, P.L.McGaughey,P.V. Ruuskanen and R.Vogt that the background from semileptonic correlated charm decays is so large that it makes dilepton measurements virtually impossible. We show that this conclusion in fact is in fact reversed if the energy loss due to secondary interaction of charmed quarks is included.