Photon production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

Abstract

The production of single photons in relativistic heavy ion collisions at CERN SPS, BNL RHIC and CERN LHC energies is re-examined in view of the recent studies of Aurenche et al which show that the rate of photon production from quark gluon plasma, evaluated at the order of two loops far exceeds the rates evaluated at one-loop level which have formed the basis of all the estimates of photons so far. We find that the production of photons from quark matter could easily out-shine those from the hadronic matter in certain ideal conditions.