Measuring Quark-Gluon-Plasma Thermalization Time with Dileptons

Abstract

We calculate the medium dilepton yield from a quark-gluon plasma which has a time-dependent local momentum-space anisotropy. A phenomenological model for the hard momentum scale, p_hard(tau), and plasma anisotropy parameter, xi(tau), is constructed which interpolates between free streaming behavior at early times (tau << tau_iso) and ideal hydrodynamic behavior at late times (tau >> tau_iso). We show that high-energy dilepton production is sensitive to the assumed plasma isotropization time, tau_iso, and can therefore be used to experimentally determine the time of onset for hydrodynamic expansion of a quark-gluon plasma and the magnitude of expected early-time momentum-space anisotropies.

4 pages, 5 figures; v3: update to match published version

References in corpus (18)

• Microscopic Models for Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ion Collisions
• Viscosity Information from Relativistic Nuclear Collisions: How Perfect is the Fluid Observed at RHIC?
• Radial and elliptic flow at RHIC: further predictions
• Flow at the SPS and RHIC as a Quark Gluon Plasma Signature
• Bottom-up thermalization in heavy ion collisions
• Photon and Gluon Emission in Relativistic Plasmas
• Collective flow and two-pion correlations from a relativistic hydrodynamic model with early chemical freeze out
• Collective Modes of an Anisotropic Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Thermalization of gluons in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions by including three-body interactions in a parton cascade
• Suppression of elliptic flow in a minimally viscous quark-gluon plasma
• Space-time evolution of bulk QCD matter
• Apparent Thermalization due to Plasma Instabilities in Quark-Gluon Plasma
• The centrality dependence of elliptic flow, the hydrodynamic limit, and the viscosity of hot QCD
• Hard Loop Approach to Anisotropic Systems
• Recent results in relativistic heavy ion collisions: from ``a new state of matter'' to "the perfect fluid"
• Production of energetic dileptons with small invariant masses from the quark-gluon plasma
• Thermalization and the chromo-Weibel instability
• High Momentum Dilepton Production from Jets in a Quark Gluon Plasma

Cited by in corpus (40)

• Dissipative Dynamics of Highly Anisotropic Systems
• Thermodynamics and Instabilities of a Strongly Coupled Anisotropic Plasma
• Highly-anisotropic hydrodynamics in 3+1 space-time dimensions
• Probing strongly coupled anisotropic plasma
• Pre-equilibrium dilepton production from an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma
• Non-boost-invariant anisotropic dynamics
• Quarkonium dissociation in the presence of a small momentum space anisotropy
• Instabilities of an anisotropically expanding non-Abelian plasma: 3D+3V discretized hard-loop simulations
• Constraining relativistic viscous hydrodynamical evolution
• Dissociation of Quarkonium in a Complex Potential
• Jet momentum broadening in the pre-equilibrium Glasma
• Color Instabilities in the Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Photons as a viscometer of heavy ion collisions
• ${\rm Y}$ suppression at forward rapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 5.02 TeV
• Electromagnetic signatures of a strongly coupled anisotropic plasma
• Dilepton production from the quark-gluon plasma using (3+1)-dimensional anisotropic dissipative hydrodynamics
• Suppression of forward dilepton production from an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma
• Dilepton production and elliptic flow from an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma
• Exact solution for the non-equilibrium attractor in number-conserving relaxation time approximation
• Yoctosecond photon pulses from quark-gluon plasmas
• More on thermal probes of a strongly coupled anisotropic plasma
• Quarkonia in anisotropic hot QCD medium in a quasi-particle model
• Matching pre-equilibrium dynamics and viscous hydrodynamics
• Indications of early thermalization in relativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Virtual photon polarization in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Photons from anisotropic Quark-Gluon-Plasma
• Dilepton polarization as a signature of plasma anisotropy
• Wake potential in collisional anisotropic quark-gluon plasma
• Nuclear modification factor in an anisotropic {\em Quark-Gluon-Plasma}
• Wake in anisotropic Quark-Gluon Plasma
• Impact of Medium Anisotropy on Quarkonium Dissociation and Regeneration
• Rapidity distribution of photons from an anisotropic Quark-Gluon-Plasma
• Dilepton production as a measure of QGP thermalization time
• Structure of virtual photon polarization in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions
• Jet-dilepton conversion from an anisotropic quark-gluon plasma
• Jet-photons from an anisotropic {\em Quark-Gluon-Plasma}
• Gluon dissociation of $J/\psi$ in anisotropic {\em Quark-Gluon-Plasma}
• Viscous effects of a hot QGP medium in time dependent magnetic field and their phenomenological significance
• On transverse momentum broadening in real-time lattice simulations of the glasma and in the weak-field limit
• Two Photon Correlation in Anisotropic Quark-gluon plasma (aQGP)